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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Normandy Picturesque, by Henry Blackburn
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+
+
+
+
+Title: Normandy Picturesque
+
+
+Author: Henry Blackburn
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 30, 2006  [eBook #18080]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORMANDY PICTURESQUE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Carlo Traverso, Janet Blenkinship, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe (http://dp.rastko.net)
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+
+NORMANDY PICTURESQUE.
+
+by
+
+HENRY BLACKBURN,
+Author of 'Travelling in Spain,' 'The Pyrenees,'
+'Artists and Arabs,' Etc.
+
+Travelling Edition.
+
+With Appendix of Routes and List of Watering-Places.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: JOAN OF ARC'S HOUSE AT ROUEN]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Map]
+
+
+
+
+London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, Crown Buildings, Fleet Street.
+1870.
+London:
+Printed by William Clowes and Sons,
+Stamford Street & Charing Cross.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+TO
+
+"_TRAVELLING EDITION._"
+
+
+In issuing the Travelling Edition of "Normandy Picturesque," the
+publishers deem it right to state that the body of the work is identical
+with the Christmas Edition; but that the APPENDIX contains
+additional information for the use of travellers, some of which is not
+to be found in any Guide, or Handbook, to France.
+
+The descriptions of places and buildings in Normandy call for little or
+no alteration in the present edition, excepting in the case of one
+town, concerning which the Author makes the following note:--
+
+     "The traveller who may arrive at Pont Audemer this year, with
+     '_Normandy Picturesque_' in his hand, will find matters strangely
+     altered since these notes were written; he will find that a railway
+     has been driven into the middle of the town, that many old houses
+     have disappeared, that the inhabitants have left off their white
+     caps, and have given up their hearts to modern ways.
+
+     "Such changes have come rapidly upon Pont Audemer, but we must not,
+     in consequence, alter our description of it; for the old houses and
+     the old customs are dear memories, and the more worth recording
+     because the reality has faded before our eyes."
+
+     _London, May, 1870._
+
+  CONTENTS.
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+  CHAP. I.--ON THE WING                                                1
+
+   "   II.--PONT AUDEMER                                              13
+
+   "  III.--LISIEUX                                                   35
+
+   "   IV.--CAEN--DIVES                                               51
+
+   "    V.--BAYEUX                                                    83
+
+   "   VI.--ST. LO--COUTANCES--GRANVILLE                             109
+
+   "  VII.--AVRANCHES--MONT ST. MICHAEL                              135
+
+   " VIII.--VIRE--MORTAIN--FALAISE                                   162
+
+   "   IX.--ROUEN                                                    185
+
+   "    X.--THE VALLEY OF THE SEINE                                  217
+
+   "   XI.--ARCHITECTURE AND COSTUME                                 243
+
+   "  XII.--THE WATERING PLACES OF NORMANDY                          265
+
+            APPENDIX                                                 283
+
+
+
+
+  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+  JOAN OF ARC'S HOUSE AT ROUEN _By_ S. PROUT.
+  _Frontispiece_.
+
+
+  CHAP.                                                             PAGE
+
+   II.--Market-place at Pont Audemer S. P. HALL
+        (_From a sketch by A. E. Browne._)                            14
+
+   "   A Sketch at Pont Audemer M. TIBIALONG                          18
+
+   "   Old Houses at Pont Audemer A. E. BROWNE                        29
+
+  III.--Wood-carving at Lisieux A. E. BROWNE                          40
+
+   IV.--Church of St. Pierre, Caen M. CLERGET                         54
+
+   "    A Sketch, at Caen M. TIBIALONG                                64
+
+   "    Old Woman of Caen M. TIRARD                                   69
+
+    V.--Bayeux Cathedral H. BLACKBURN 83
+
+    "   Corner of House at Bayeux A. E. BROWNE                        86
+
+    "   Ancient Tablet in Cathedral H. BLACKBURN                      90
+
+    "   Facsimile of Bayeux Tapestry A. SEVERN                       103
+
+   VI.--A Sketch, at Cherbourg M. TIBIALONG                          110
+
+   "    Exterior Pulpit at St. Lo _From a Photograph_                116
+
+   "    A 'Toiler of the Sea' S. P. HALL 132
+
+   "    Mont St. Michael H. BLACKBURN 135
+
+  VII.--Church near Avranches H. BLACKBURN 144
+
+   "    Ancient Cross H. BLACKBURN 147
+
+ VIII.--Clock Tower at Vire H. BLACKBURN                             171
+
+   IX.--Rouen Cathedral M. CLERGET 194
+
+    X.--Market-women--Lower Normandy S. P. HALL
+        (_From a sketch by A. E. Browne._)                           217
+
+   XI.--Modern houses at Houlgate H. BLACKBURN                       253
+
+   "   'The Wrestlers' GUSTAVE DORE                                  257
+
+
+
+
+NORMANDY PICTURESQUE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_ON THE WING._
+
+
+It is, perhaps, rather a subject for reproach to English people that the
+swallows and butterflies of our social system are too apt to forsake
+their native woods and glens in the summer months, and to fly to 'the
+Continent' for recreation and change of scene; whilst poets tell us,
+with eloquent truth, that there is a music in the branches of England's
+trees, and a soft beauty in her landscape more soothing and gracious in
+their influence than 'aught in the world beside.'
+
+Whether it be wise or prudent, or even pleasant, to leave our island in
+the very height of its season, so to speak--at a time when it is most
+lovely, when the sweet fresh green of the meadows is changing to bloom
+of harvest and gold of autumn--for countries the features of which are
+harder, and the landscape, if bolder, certainly less beautiful, for a
+climate which, if more sunny, is certainly more bare and burnt up, and
+for skies which, if more blue, lack much of the poetry of cloud-land--we
+will not stay to enquire; but admitting the fact that, for various
+reasons, English people _will_ go abroad in the autumn, and that there
+is a fashion, we might almost say a passion, for 'flying, flying south,'
+which seems irresistible--we will endeavour in the following pages to
+suggest a compromise, in the shape of a tour which shall include the
+undoubted delight and charm of foreign travel, with scenery more like
+England than any other in Europe, which shall be within an easy distance
+from our shores, and within the limits of a short purse; and which
+should have one special attraction for us, viz., that the country to be
+seen and the people to be visited bear about them a certain English
+charm--the men a manliness, and the women a beauty with which we may be
+proud to claim kindred.
+
+We speak of the north-west corner of France, divided from us (and
+perhaps once not divided) by the British Channel--the district called
+NORMANDY (_Neustria_), and sometimes, 'nautical France,' which
+includes the Departments of _Calvados_, _Eure_, _Orne_, and part of _La
+Manche_. It comprises, as is well known, but a small part of France, and
+occupies an area of about one hundred and fifty miles by seventy-five,
+but in this small compass is comprehended so much that is interesting
+to English people that we shall find quite enough to see and to do
+within its limits alone.
+
+If the reader will turn to the little map on our title-page, he will see
+at a glance the position of the principal towns in Normandy, which we
+may take in the following order, making England (or London) our starting
+point:--
+
+Crossing the Channel from Southampton to Havre by night, or from
+Newhaven to Dieppe by day, we proceed at once to the town of PONT
+AUDEMER, situated about six miles from Quillebeuf and eight from
+Honfleur, both on the left bank of the Seine. From Havre, Pont Audemer
+may be reached in a few hours, by water, and from Dieppe, Rouen or Paris
+there is now railway communication. From Pont Audemer we go to
+LISIEUX (by road or railway), from Lisieux to CAEN, BAYEUX and ST. LO,
+where the railway ends, and we take the diligence to COUTANCES,
+GRANVILLE, and AVRANCHES. After a visit to the island of Mont St.
+Michael, we may return (by diligence) by way of MORTAIN, VIRE, and
+FALAISE; thence to ROUEN, and by the valley of the Seine, to the
+sea-coast.[1]
+
+The whole journey is a short and inexpensive one, and may occupy a
+fortnight, a month, or three months (the latter is not too long), and
+may be made a simple _voyage de plaisir_, or turned to good account for
+artistic study.
+
+But there is one peculiarity about it that should be mentioned at the
+outset. The route we have indicated, simple as it seems, and most easily
+to be carried out as it would appear, is really rather difficult of
+accomplishment, for the one reason that the journey is almost always
+made on _cross-roads_. The traveller who follows it will continually
+find himself delayed because he is not going to Paris. 'Paris is France'
+under the Imperial regime, and at nearly every town or railway station
+he will be reminded of the fact; and, if he be not careful, will find
+himself and his baggage whisked off to the capital.[2] If he wishes to
+see Normandy, and to carry out the idea of a provincial tour in its
+integrity, he must resist temptation, _have nothing to do with Paris_,
+and put up with slow trains, creeping diligences, and second-rate inns.
+
+The network of roads and railways in France converge as surely to the
+capital as the threads of a spider's web lead to its centre, and in
+pursuing his route through the bye-ways of Normandy the traveller will
+be much in the position of the fly that has stepped upon its
+meshes--every road and railway leading to the capital where '_M.
+d'Araignee_' the enticing, the alluring, the fascinating, the most
+extravagant--is ever waiting for his prey.
+
+From the moment he sets foot on the shores of Normandy, Paris will be
+made ever present to him. Let him go, for example, to the railway
+station at any port on his arrival in France, and he will find
+everything--people, goods, and provisions, being hurried off to the
+capital as if there were no other place to live in, or to provide for.
+Let him (in pursuit of the journey we have suggested) tread cautiously
+on the _fil de fer_ at Lisieux, for he will pass over one of the main
+lines that connect the world of Fashion at Paris with another world of
+Fashion by the sea.[3] Let him, when at St. Lo, apply for a place in
+the diligence for Avranches, and he will be told by a polite official
+that nothing can be done until the mail train arrives from Paris; and
+let him not be surprised if, on his arrival at Avranches, his name be
+chronicled in the local papers as the latest arrival from the capital.
+Let him again, on his homeward journey, try and persuade the people of
+Mortain and Vire that he does _not_ intend to visit Paris, and he will
+be able to form some estimate of its importance in the eyes of the
+French people.
+
+We draw attention to this so pointedly at the outset, because it is
+altogether inconsistent and wide of our purpose in making a quiet, and
+we may add, economical, visit to Normandy, to do, as is the general
+custom with travellers--spend half their time and most of their money in
+Paris.
+
+Thus much in outline for the ordinary English traveller on a holiday
+ramble; but the artist or the architect need not go so far a-field. If
+we might make a suggestion to him, especially to the architect, we would
+say, take only the first four towns on our list (continuing the journey
+to Coutances, or returning by Rouen if there be opportunity), and he
+will find enough to last him a summer.[4] If he has never set foot in
+Normandy before we may promise him an aesthetic treat beyond his dreams.
+He will have his idols both of wood and stone--wood for dwelling, and
+stone for worship; at PONT AUDEMER, the simple domestic
+architecture of the middle ages, and at LISIEUX, the more
+ornate and luxurious; passing on to CAEN, he will have (in
+ecclesiastical architecture) the memorial churches of William the
+Conqueror, and, in the neighbouring city of BAYEUX (in one
+building), examples of the 'early,' as well as the more elaborate,
+gothic of the middle ages.
+
+If the architect, or art student, will but make this little pilgrimage
+in its integrity, if he will, like Christian, walk in faith--turning
+neither to the right hand nor to the left, and shunning the broad road
+which leads to destruction--he will be rewarded.
+
+There are two paths for the architect in Normandy, as elsewhere--paths
+which we may call the 'simple right' and the 'elaborate wrong,' and the
+right path is sometimes as difficult to follow as the path of virtue.
+
+But both artist and amateur will revel alike in the beauty of landscape,
+in the variety of form and colour of the old buildings, and in the
+costume of the people; and we cannot imagine a more pleasant and
+complete change from the heat and pressure of a London season than to
+drop down (suddenly, as it were, like a bird making a swoop in the air),
+into the midst of the quiet, primitive population of a town like Pont
+Audemer, not many miles removed from the English coast, but at least a
+thousand in the habits and customs of the people. An artist of any
+sensibility could scarcely do it, the shock would be too great, the
+delight too much to be borne; but the ordinary reader, who has prepared
+his mind to some extent by books of travel, or the tourist, who has come
+out simply for a holiday, may enjoy the change as he never enjoyed
+anything before.
+
+In the following pages we do not profess to describe each place on the
+route we have suggested, but rather to record a few notes, made at
+various times during a sojourn in Normandy; notes--not intended to be
+exhaustive, or even as complete and comprehensive in description, as
+ordinary books of travel, but which--written in the full enjoyment of
+summer time in this country, in sketching in the open air, and in the
+exploration of its mediaeval towns--may perchance impart something of the
+author's enthusiasm to his unknown readers, when scattered upon the
+winds of a publisher's breeze.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_PONT AUDEMER._
+
+
+About one hundred and fifty miles in a direct line from the door of the
+Society of British Architects in Conduit Street, London (and almost
+unknown, we venture to say, to the majority of its members), sleeps the
+little town of PONT AUDEMER, with its quaint old gables, its
+tottering houses, its Gothic 'bits,' its projecting windows, carved oak
+galleries, and streets of time-worn buildings--centuries old. Old
+dwellings, old customs, old caps, old tanneries, set in a landscape of
+bright green hills.[5]
+
+'Old as the hills,' and almost as unchanged in aspect, are the ways of
+the people of Pont Audemer, who dress and tan hides, and make merry as
+their fathers did before them. For several centuries they have devoted
+themselves to commerce and the arts of peace, and in the enthusiasm of
+their business have desecrated one or two churches into tanneries. But
+they are a conservative and primitive people, loving to do as their
+ancestors did, and to dwell where they dwelt; they build their houses to
+last for several generations, and take pride and interest in the 'family
+mansion,' a thing unknown and almost impossible amongst the middle
+classes of most communities.
+
+[Illustration: MARKET PLACE, PONT AUDEMER.]
+
+Pont Audemer was once warlike; it had its castle in feudal times
+(destroyed in the 14th century), and the legend exists that cannon was
+here first used in warfare. It has its history of wars in the time of
+the Norman dukes, but its aspect is now quiet and peaceful, and its
+people appear happy and contented; the little river Rille winds about
+it, and spreads its streamlets like branches through the streets, and
+sparkles in the evening light. Like Venice, it has its 'silent
+highways;' like Venice, also, on a smaller and humbler scale, it has its
+old facades and lintels drooping to the water's edge; like Venice, too,
+we must add, that it has its odours here and there--odours not always
+proceeding from the tanneries.
+
+In the chief place of the _arrondissement_, and in a rapidly increasing
+town, containing about six thousand inhabitants; with a reputation for
+healthiness and cheapness of living, and with a railway from Paris, we
+must naturally look for changes and modern ways; but Pont Audemer is
+still essentially old, and some of its inhabitants wear the caps, as in
+our illustration, which were sketched only yesterday in the
+market-place.
+
+If we take up our quarters at the old-fashioned inn called the _Pot
+d'Etain_, we shall find much to remind us of the 15th century. If we
+take a walk by the beautiful banks of the Rille on a summer's evening,
+or in the fields where the peasants are at work, we shall find the
+aspect curiously English, and in the intonation of the voices the
+resemblance is sometimes startling; we seem hardly amongst
+foreigners--both in features and in voice there is a strong family
+likeness. There is a close tie of blood relationship no doubt, of
+ancient habits and natural tastes; but, in spite of railways and
+steamboats, the two peoples know very little of each other.
+
+That young girl with the plain white cap fitting close to her hair--who
+tends the flocks on the hill side, and puts all her power and energy
+into the little matter of knitting a stocking--is a Norman maiden, a
+lineal descendant, it may be, of some ancient house, whose arms we may
+find in our own heraldic albums. She is noble by nature, and has the
+advantage over her coroneted cousins in being permitted to wear a white
+cap out of doors, and an easy and simple costume; in the fact of her
+limbs being braced by a life spent in the open air, and her head not
+being plagued with the proprieties of May Fair. She is pretty; but what
+is of more importance she knows how to cook, and she has a little store
+of money in a bank. She has been taught enough for her station, and has
+few wishes beyond it; and some day she will marry Jean, and happy will
+be Jean.
+
+That stalwart warrior (whom we see on the next page), sunning himself
+outside his barrack door, having just clapped his helmet on the head of
+a little boy in blouse and sabots, is surely a near relation to our
+guardsman; he is certainly brave, he is full of fun and intelligence, he
+very seldom takes more wine than is good for him, and a game at
+dominoes delights his soul.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But it is in the market-place of Pont Audemer that we shall obtain the
+best idea of the place and of the people.
+
+On market mornings and on fete days, when the _Place_ is crowded with
+old and young,--when all the caps (of every variety of shape, from the
+'helmet' to the _bonnet-rouge_), and all the old brown coats with short
+tails--are collected together, we have a picture, the like of which we
+may have seen in rare paintings, but very seldom realize in life. Of the
+tumult of voices on these busy mornings, of the harsh discordant sounds
+that sometimes fill the air, we must not say much, remembering their
+continual likeness to our own; but viewed, picturesquely, it is a sight
+not to be forgotten, and one that few English people are aware can be
+witnessed so near home.
+
+Here the artist will find plenty of congenial occupation, and
+opportunities (so difficult to meet with in these days) of sketching
+both architecture and people of a picturesque type--groups in the
+market-place, groups down by the river fishing under the trees, groups
+at windows of old hostelries, and seated at inn doors; horses in clumsy
+wooden harness; calves and pigs, goats and sheep; women at fruit stalls,
+under tents and coloured umbrellas; piles upon piles of baskets, a
+wealth of green things, and a bright fringe of fruit and flowers,
+arranged with all the fanciful grace of "_les dames des halles_," in
+Paris.[6]
+
+All this, and much more the artist finds to his hand, and what does the
+architect discover? First of all, that if he had only come here before
+he might have saved himself an immensity of thought and trouble, for he
+would have found such suggestions for ornament in wood carving, for
+panels, doorways, and the like, of so good a pattern, and so old, that
+they are new to the world of to-day; he would have found houses built
+out over the rivers, looking like pieces of old furniture, ranged side
+by side--rich in colour and wonderfully preserved, with their wooden
+gables, carved in oak of the fifteenth century, supported by massive
+timbers, sound and strong, of even older date. He would see many of
+these houses with windows full of flowers, and creepers twining round
+the old eaves; and long drying-poles stretched out horizontally, with
+gay-coloured clothes upon them, flapping in the wind--all contrasting
+curiously with the dark buildings.
+
+But he would also find some houses on the verge of ruin. If he explored
+far enough in the dark, narrow streets, where the rivers flow under the
+windows of empty dwellings; he might see them tottering, and threatening
+downfall upon each other--leaning over and casting shadows, black and
+mysterious upon the water--no line perpendicular, no line horizontal,
+the very beau-ideal of picturesque decay--buildings of which Longfellow
+might have sung as truly as of Nuremberg,--
+
+  "Memories haunt thy pointed gables,
+  Like the rooks which round them throng."
+
+In short, he would find Pont Audemer, and the neighbouring town of
+Lisieux, treasure houses of old mysterious 'bits' of colour and form,
+suggestive of simple domestic usage in one building, and princely
+grandeur in another--strength and simplicity, grace and beauty of
+design--all speaking to him of a past age with the eloquence of history.
+
+Let us look well at these old buildings, many of them reared and dwelt
+in by men of humble birth and moderate means--(men who lived happily and
+died easily without amassing a fortune)--let us, if we can, without too
+much envy, think for a moment of the circumstances under which these
+houses were built. To us, to many of us, who pay dearly for the
+privilege of living between four square walls (so slight and thin
+sometimes, that our neighbours are separated from us by sight, but
+scarcely by sound)--walls that we hire for shelter, from necessity, and
+leave generally without reluctance; that we are prone to cover with
+paper, in the likeness of oak and marble, to hide their meanness--these
+curious, odd-shaped interiors, with massive walls, and solid oak
+timbers, are especially attractive. How few modern rooms, for instance,
+have such niches in them, such seats in windows and snug corners, that
+of all things make a house comfortable. Some of these rooms are twenty
+feet high, and are lighted from windows in surprising places, and of the
+oddest shapes. What more charming than this variety, to the eye jaded
+with monotony; what more suggestive, than the apparently accidental
+application of Gothic architecture to the wants and requirements of the
+age.[7]
+
+We will not venture to say that these old buildings are altogether
+admirable from an architect's point of view, but to us they are
+delightful, because they were designed and inhabited by people who had
+time to be quaint, and could not help being picturesque. And if these
+old wooden houses seem to us wanting (as many are wanting) in the
+appliances and fittings which modern habits have rendered necessary, it
+was assuredly no fault of the 15th-century architect. They display both
+in design and construction, most conspicuously, the elements of common
+sense in meeting the requirements of their own day, which is, as has
+been well remarked, "the one thing wanting to give life to modern
+architecture;" and they have a character and individuality about them
+which renders almost every building unique. Like furniture of rare
+design they bear the direct impress of their maker. They were built in
+an age of comparative leisure, when men gave their hearts to the
+meanest, as well as to the mightiest, work of their hands; in an age
+when love, hope, and a worthy emulation moved them, as it does not seem
+to move men now; in an age, in short, when an approving notice in the
+columns of the 'Builder' newspaper, was not a high aspiration.
+
+But in nothing is the attraction greater to us, who are accustomed to
+the monotonous perspective of modern streets, than the irregularity of
+the _exteriors_, arising from the independent method of construction;
+for, by varying the height and pattern of each facade, the builders
+obtained to almost every house what architects term the 'return,' to
+their cornices and mouldings, i.e., the corner-finish and completeness
+to the most important projecting lines. And yet these houses are
+evidently built with relation to each other; they generally harmonize,
+and set off, and uphold each other, just as forest trees form themselves
+naturally into groups for support and protection.
+
+All this we may see at a distance, looking down the varied perspective
+of these streets of clustering dwellings; and the closer we examine
+them, the more we find to interest, if not to admire. If we gain little
+in architectural knowledge, we at least gain pleasure, we learn _the
+value of variety in its simplest forms_, and notice how easy it would be
+to relieve the monotony of our London streets; we learn, too, the
+artistic value of high-pitched roofs, of contrast in colour (if it be
+only of dark beams against white plaster) and of _meaning_ in every line
+of construction.
+
+These, and many more such, sheaves we may gather from our Norman
+harvest, but we must haste and bind them, for the winds of time are
+scattering fast. Pont Audemer is being modernised, and many an
+interesting old building is doomed to destruction; whilst cotton-mills
+and steam-engines, and little white villas amongst the trees, black
+coats and parisian bonnets, all tend to blot out the memories of
+mediaeval days. Let us make the most of the place whilst there is
+time--and let us, before we pass on to Lisieux, add one picture of Pont
+Audemer in the early morning--a picture which every year will seem less
+real.[8]
+
+There are few monuments or churches to examine, and when we have seen
+the stained-glass windows in the fine old church of St. Ouen, and walked
+by the banks of the Rille, to the ruins of a castle (of the twelfth
+century) at Montfort; we shall have seen the chief objects of interest,
+in what Murray laconically describes as, 'a prettily situated town of
+5400 inhabitants, famed for its tanneries.'
+
+
+_Early morning at Pont Audemer._
+
+That there is 'nothing new under the sun,' may perhaps be true of its
+rising; nevertheless, a new sensation awaits most of us, if we choose
+to see it under various phases. The early morning at Pont Audemer is the
+same early morning that breaks upon the unconscious inhabitants of a
+London street; but the conditions are more delightful and very much more
+picturesque; and we might be excused for presenting the picture on the
+simple ground that it treats of certain hours of of the twenty-four, of
+which most of us know nothing, and in which (such are the exigencies of
+modern civilization) most of us do nothing.
+
+[Illustration: OLD HOUSES, PONT AUDEMER.]
+
+A storm passed over the town one night in August, which shook the great
+rafters of the old houses, and made the timbers strain; the water flowed
+from them as from the sides of a ship--one minute they were illuminated,
+the next, they were in blackest gloom. In two or three hours it has all
+passed away, and as we go out into the silent town, and cross the street
+where it forms a bridge over the Rille (the spot from which the next
+sketch was taken), a faint gleam of light appears upon the water, and
+upon the wet beams of one or two projecting gables. The darkness and the
+'dead' silence are soon to be disturbed--one or two birds fly out from
+the black eaves, a rat crosses the street, some distant chimes come upon
+the wind, and a faint clatter of sabots on the wet stones; the town
+clock strikes half-past three, and the watchman puts out his lantern,
+and goes to sleep. The morning is breaking on Pont Audemer, and it is
+the time for surprises--for the sudden appearance of a gable-end, which
+just now was shadow, for the more gradual, but not less curious,
+formation of a street in what seemed to be space; for the sudden
+creation of windows in dead walls, for the turning of fantastic shadows
+into palpable carts, baskets, piles of wood, and the like; and for the
+discovery of a number of coiled-up dogs (and one or two coiled-up men)
+who had weathered the night in sheltered places.
+
+But the grey light is turning fast to gold, the warmer tints begin to
+prevail, the streets leading eastward are gleaming, and the hills are
+glistening in their bright fresh green.[9] The sweet morning air
+welcomes us as we leave the streets and its five thousand sleepers, and
+pass over another bridge and out by the banks of the Rille, where the
+fish are stirring in the swollen stream, and the lilies are dancing on
+the water. The wind blows freshly through the trees, and scatters the
+raindrops thickly; the clouds, the last remnant of the night's storm,
+career through a pale blue space, the birds are everywhere on the wing,
+cattle make their appearance in the landscape, and peasants are already
+to be seen on the roads leading to the town.
+
+Suddenly--with gleams of gold, and with a rushing chorus of insect life,
+and a thousand voices in the long grass on the river's bank--the day
+begins.[10] It is market-morning, and we will go a little way up the
+hill to watch the arrivals--a hill, from which there is a view over town
+and valley; the extent and beauty of which it would be difficult to
+picture to the reader, in words. Listen! for there is already a
+cavalcade coming down the hill; we can see it at intervals through the
+trees, and hear men's voices, the laughter of women, the bleating of
+calves, and the crushing sound of wheels upon the road. It is a peaceful
+army, though the names of its leaders (if we heard them), might stir up
+warlike memories--there are Howards and Percys amongst them, but there
+is no clash of arms; they come of a brave lineage, their ancestors
+fought well under the walls of Pont Audemer; but they have laid down
+their arms for centuries--their end is commerce and peace.
+
+Let us stand aside under the lime trees, and see them pass. But they are
+making a halt, their horses go straight to the water-trough, and the
+whole cavalcade comes to a stand; the old women in the carts (wearing
+starched caps a foot high) with baskets of eggs, butter, cheeses, and
+piles of merchandise, sit patiently until the time comes to start again;
+and the drivers, in blouses and wooden sabots, lounge about and smoke,
+or sit down to rest. The young girls, who accompany the expedition and
+who will soon take their places in the market, now set to work
+systematically to perform their toilettes, commencing by washing their
+feet in a stream, and putting on the shoes and stockings which they had
+carried during their wet march; then more ablutions, with much fun, and
+laughter, and tying up of tresses, and producing from baskets of those
+wonderful caps which we have sketched so often--_souffles_ of most
+fantastic shape and startling dimensions. This was the crowning work,
+the picture was complete: bright, fresh, morning faces, glowing under
+white caps; neat grey or blue dresses with white bodices, or coloured
+handkerchiefs; grey stockings, shoes with buckles, and a silver cross, a
+rosary, or a flower. We must not quite forget the younger men (with
+coats, not blouses), who plumed themselves in a rough way, and wore
+wonderful felt hats; nor, above all, a peep through the trees behind the
+group, far away down the valley, at the gables and turrets of Pont
+Audemer, glistening through a cloud of haze. This is all we need
+describe, a word more would spoil the picture; like one of Edouard
+Frere's paintings of "Cottage Life in Brittany," the charm and pathos of
+the scene lie in its simplicity and harmony with Nature.
+
+If we choose to stay until the day advances, we may see more
+market-people come crowding in, and white caps will crop up in the
+distance through the trees, till the green meadows blossom with them,
+and sparkle like a lawn of daisies; we may hear the ringing laughter of
+the girls to whom market day seems an occasion of great rejoicing, and
+we may be somewhat distracted with the steady droning patois of the old
+women; but we come to see rather than to hear, and, returning to the
+town for the last time, we take our station at the corner of the
+market-place, and make a sketch of a group of Norman maidens who are
+well worth coming out to see.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_LISIEUX._
+
+     'Oh! the pleasant days, when men built houses after their own
+     minds, and wrote their own devices on the walls, and none laughed
+     at them; when little wooden knights and saints peeped out from the
+     angles of gable-ended houses, and every street displayed a store of
+     imaginative wealth.'--_La Belle France_.
+
+
+We must now pass on to the neighbouring town of LISIEUX, which
+will be found even more interesting than Pont Audemer in examples of
+domestic architecture of the middle ages; resisting with difficulty a
+passing visit to Pont l'Eveque, another old town a few miles distant.
+"Who does not know Pont l'Eveque," asks an enthusiastic Frenchman,
+"that clean little smiling town, seated in the midst of adorable
+scenery, with its little black, white, rose-colour and blue houses? One
+sighs and says 'It would be good to live here,' and then one passes on
+and goes to amuse oneself"--at Trouville-sur-mer!
+
+If we approach Lisieux by the road from Pont Audemer (a distance of
+about twenty-six miles) we shall get a better impression of the town
+than if riding upon the whirlwind of an express train; and we shall pass
+through a prettily-wooded country, studded with villas and
+comfortable-looking houses, surrounded by pleasant fruit and flower
+gardens--the modern abodes of wealthy manufacturers from the
+neighbouring towns, and also of a few English families.
+
+We ought to come quietly through the suburbs of Lisieux, if only to see
+how its 13,000 inhabitants are busied in their woollen and cloth
+factories; how they have turned the old timber-framed houses of feudal
+times into warehouses; how the banners and signs of chivalry are
+desecrated into trade-marks, and how its inhabitants are devoting
+themselves heart and soul to the arts of peace. We should then approach
+the town by picturesque wooden bridges over the rivers which have
+brought the town its prosperity, and see some isolated examples of
+carved woodwork in the suburbs; in houses surrounded by gardens, which
+we should have missed by any other road.[11]
+
+The churches at Lisieux are scarcely as interesting to us as its
+domestic architecture; but we must not neglect to examine the pointed
+Gothic of the 13th century in the cathedral of St. Pierre. The door of
+the south transept, and one of the doors under the western towers (the
+one on the right hand) is very beautiful, and is quite mauresque in the
+delicacy of its design. The interior is of fine proportions, but is
+disfigured with a coat of yellow paint; whilst common wooden seats (of
+churchwardens' pattern) and wainscotting have been built up against its
+pillars, the stone work having been cut away to accommodate the painted
+wood. There are some good memorial windows; one of Henry II. being
+married to Eleanor (1152); and another of Thomas-a-Becket visiting
+Lisieux when exiled in 1169.
+
+The church of St. Jacques with its fine stained-glass, the interior of
+which is much plainer than St. Pierre, will not detain us long; it is
+rather to such streets as the celebrated '_Rue aux Fevres_' that we are
+attracted by the decoration of the houses, and their curious
+construction. There is one house in this street, the entire front of
+which is covered with grotesquely carved figures, intricate patterns,
+and graceful pillars. The exterior woodwork is blackened with age, and
+the whole building threatens to fall upon its present tenant--the keeper
+of a cafe. The beams which support the roof inside are also richly
+decorated.
+
+To give the reader any idea of the variety of the wooden houses at
+Lisieux would require a series of drawings or photographs: we can do
+little more in these pages than point out these charming corners of the
+world where something is still left to us of the work of the middle
+ages.
+
+The general character of the houses is better than at Pont Audemer, and
+the style is altogether more varied. Stone as well as wood is used in
+their construction, and the rooms are more commodious and more
+elaborately decorated. But the exterior carving and the curious signs
+engraved on the time-stained wood, are the most distinctive features,
+and give the streets their picturesque character. Here we may notice, in
+odd corners, names and legends carved in wood on the panels, harmonizing
+curiously with the decoration; just as the names of the owners (in
+German characters) are carved on Swiss chalets; and the words 'God is
+great,' and the like, form appropriate ornaments (in Arabic) over the
+door of a mosque.[12] And upon heraldic shields, on old oak panels, and
+amidst groups of clustering leaves, we may sometimes trace the names of
+the founders (often the architects) of the houses in which several
+generations lived and died.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The strange familiarity of some of these crests and devices (lions,
+tigers, dragons, griffins, and other emblems of ferocity), the English
+character of many of the names, and the Latin mottos, identical with
+some in common use in England, may give us a confused and not very
+dignified idea respecting their almost universal use by the middle
+classes in England. M. Taine, a well-known french writer, remarks that
+'c'est loin du monde que nous pouvons jugez sainement des illusions dont
+nous environt,' and perhaps it is from Lisieux that we may best see
+ourselves, wearing 'coats of arms.'
+
+It is considered by many an unmeaning and unjust phrase to call the
+nineteenth century 'an age of shams,' but it seems appropriate enough
+when we read in newspapers daily, of 'arms found' and 'crests designed;'
+and when we consider the extent of the practice of assuming them, or
+rather we should say, of having them 'found,' we cannot feel very proud
+of the fashion. Without entering into a genealogical discussion, we have
+plenty of evidence that the Normans held their lands and titles from a
+very early date, and that after the Conquest their family arms were
+spread over England; but not in any measure to the extent to which they
+are used amongst us. In these days nearly every one has a 'crest' or a
+'coat of arms.'[13] Do the officials of Heralds' College (we may ask in
+parenthesis) believe in their craft? and does the tax collector ever
+receive 13_s_. 4_d_. for imaginary honours? Such things did not, and
+could not, exist in mediaeval times, in the days when every one had his
+place from the noble to the vassal, when every man's name was known and
+his title to property, if he had any, clearly defined. A 'title' in
+those days meant a title to land, and an acceptance of its
+responsibilities. How many "titled" people in these days possess the
+one, or accept the other?
+
+It would seem reserved for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to
+create a state of society when the question 'Who is he?' has to be
+perpetually asked and not always easily answered; in a word, to foster
+and increase to its present almost overwhelming dimensions a great
+middle-class of society without a name or a title, or even a home to
+call its own.
+
+It was assuredly a good time when men's lives and actions were handed
+down, so to speak, from father to son, and the poor man had his '_locum
+tenens_' as well as the rich; and how he loved his own dwelling, how he
+decked it with ornament according to his taste or his means, how he
+watched over it and preserved it from decay; how, in short, his pride
+was in his own hearth and home--these old buildings tell us.
+
+The conservative influence of all this on his character (which, although
+we are in France, we must call 'home-feeling'), its tendency to
+contentment and self-respect, are subjects suggestive enough, but on
+which we must not dwell. It flourished during the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries, and it declined when men commenced crowding into
+cities, and were no longer 'content to do without what they could not
+produce.'[14]
+
+Let us stay quietly at Lisieux, if we have time, and _see_ the place,
+for we shall find nothing in all Normandy to exceed it in interest; and
+the way to see it best, and to remember it, is, undoubtedly, to
+_sketch_. Let us make out all these curious 'bits,' these signs, and
+emblems in wood and stone--twigs and moss, and birds with delicate
+wings, a spray of leaves, the serene head of a Madonna, the rampant
+heraldic griffin,--let us copy, if we can, their colour and the marks of
+age. We may sketch them, and we may dwell upon them, here, with the
+enthusiasm of an artist who returns to his favourite picture again and
+again; for we have seen the sun scorching these panels and burning upon
+their gilded shields; and we have seen the snow-flakes fall upon these
+sculptured eaves, silently, softly, thickly--like the dust upon the
+bronze figures of Ghiberti's gates at Florence--so thickly fall, so soon
+disperse, leaving the dark outlines sharp and clear against the sky; the
+wood almost as unharmed as the bronze.
+
+But more interesting, perhaps, to the traveller who sees these things
+for the first time, more charming than the most exquisite Gothic lines,
+more fascinating than their quaint aspect, more attractive even than
+their colour or their age, are the associations connected with them; and
+the knowledge that they bear upon them the direct impress of the hands
+that built them centuries ago, and that every house is stamped, as it
+were, with the hall mark of individuality. The historian is nowhere so
+eloquent as when he can point to such examples as these. We may learn
+from them (as we did at Pont Audemer) much of the method of working in
+the 14th century, and, indeed, of the habits of the people, and the
+secret of their great success.
+
+It is evident enough that in those old times when men were very
+ignorant, slavish, easily led, impulsive (childlike we might almost call
+them), everything they undertook like the building of a house, was a
+serious matter, a labour of love, and the work of many years; to be an
+architect and a builder was the aspiration of their boyhood, the natural
+growth of artistic instinct, guided by so much right as they could glean
+from their elders. With few books or rules, they worked out their
+designs for themselves, irrespective, it would seem, of time or cost.
+And why should they consider either the one or the other, when time was
+of no 'marketable value,' when the buildings were to last for ages; and
+when there were no such things as estimates in those days? Like the
+Moors in Spain, they did much as they pleased, and, like them also, they
+had a great advantage over architects of our own day--they had little to
+_unlearn_. They knew their materials, and had not to endeavour, after a
+laborious and expensive education in one school, to modify and alter
+their method of treatment to meet the exigencies of another. They were
+not cramped for space, nor for money; they were not 'tied for time;' and
+they had not to fight against, and make compromises with, the two great
+enemies of modern architects--Economy and Iron.
+
+At Lisieux, as at Pont Audemer, we cannot help being struck with the
+extreme simplicity of the method of building, and with the
+_possibilities_ of Gothic for domestic purposes. We see it here, in its
+pure and natural development, as opposed to the rather unnatural
+adoption of mediaeval art in England, in the latter half of the 19th
+century. This last is, to quote a well-known writer on art, 'the worship
+of Gothic-run-mad' in architecture. It instals itself wherever it can,
+in mediaevally-devised houses, fitted up with mediaeval chairs and tables,
+presses and cupboards, wall papers, and window hangings, all 'brand-new,
+and intensely old;' which feeds its fancy on old pictures and old
+poetry, its faith on old legend and ceremonial, and would fain dress
+itself in the garb of the 15th century--the natural reaction in a
+certain class of minds against the mean and prosaic aspects of
+contemporary work-a-day life.
+
+The quiet contemplation of the old buildings in such towns as Pont
+Audemer, Lisieux, and Bayeux, must, we should think, convince the most
+enthusiastic admirers of the archaic school, that the mere isolated
+reproduction of these houses in the midst of modern streets (such as we
+are accustomed to in London or Paris) is of little use, and is, in fact,
+beginning at the wrong end. It might occur to them, when examining the
+details of these buildings, and picturing to themselves the lives of
+their inhabitants, in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, that the
+'forcing system' is a mistake--that art never flourished as an exotic,
+and assuredly never will--that before we live again in mediaeval houses,
+and realise the true meaning of what is 'Gothic' and appropriate in
+architecture, we must begin at the beginning, our lives must be simpler,
+our costumes more graceful and appropriate, and the education of our
+children more in harmony with a true feeling for art. In short, we must
+be more manly, more capable, more self-reliant, and true to each other,
+and have less in common with the present age of shams.
+
+The very essence and life of Gothic art is its realism and truism, and
+until we carry out its principles in our hearts and lives, it will be
+little more to us than a toy and a tradition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_CAEN._
+
+     'Large, strong, full of draperies, and all sorts of merchandise;
+     rich citizens, noble dames, damsels, and fine churches.'
+
+
+The ancient city of Caen, which was thus described by Froissart in the
+middle of the fourteenth century, when the English sacked the town and
+carried away its riches, might be described in the nineteenth, in almost
+the same words; when a goodly company of English people have again taken
+possession of it--for its cheapness.
+
+The chief town of the department of Calvados with a population numbering
+nearly 50,000--the centre of the commerce of lower Normandy, and of the
+district for the production of black lace--Caen has a busy and thriving
+aspect; the river Orne, on which it is built, is laden with produce;
+with corn, wine, oil, and cider; with timber, and with shiploads of the
+celebrated Caen stone. On every side we see the signs of productiveness
+and plenty, and consequent cheapness of many of the necessaries of life;
+Calvados, like the rest of lower Normandy, has earned for itself the
+name of the 'food-producing land' of France, from whence both London and
+Paris (and all great centres) are supplied. The variety and cheapness of
+the goods for sale, manufactured here and in the neighbourhood, testify
+to the industry and enterprise of the people of Caen; there is probably
+no city in Normandy where purchases of clothing, hardware, &c., can be
+more advantageously made.
+
+There is commercial activity at Caen and little sympathy with idlers.
+If we take up a position in the _Place Royale_, adorned with a statue of
+Louis XIV., or, better, in the _Place St. Pierre_ near the church tower,
+we shall see a mixed and industrious population; and we shall probably
+hear several different accents of Norman patois. But we shall see a
+number of modern-looking shops, and warehouses full of Paris goods, and
+even find smooth pavement to walk upon.
+
+We are treading in the 'footsteps of the Conqueror' at Caen, but its
+busy inhabitants have little time for historic memories; they will
+jostle us in the market-place, and in the principal streets they will be
+seen rushing about as if 'on change,' or hurrying to 'catch the train
+for Paris,' like the rest of the world. A few only have eyes of love and
+admiration for the noble spire of the church of St. Pierre, which rises
+above the old houses and the market-place, with even a grander effect
+than any that the artist has been able to render in the illustration.
+'St. Pierre, St. Pierre,' are the first and last words we heard of Caen;
+the first time, when--approaching it one summer's morning from Dives, by
+the banks of the Orne--the driver of our caleche pointed to its summit
+with the pride of a Savoy peasant, shewing the traveller the highest
+peak of Monte Rosa; and the last, when Caen was en fete, and all the
+world flocked to hear a great preacher from Paris, and the best singers
+in Calvados.
+
+Built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in the best period of
+Gothic art in Normandy, its beautiful proportions and grace of line
+(especially when seen from the north side) have been the admiration of
+ages of architects and the occasion of many a special pilgrimage in our
+own day. Pugin has sketched its western facade and its 'lancet windows;'
+and Prout has given us drawings of the spire, '_percee au
+jour_'--perforated with such mathematical accuracy that, as we approach
+the tower, there is always one, or more, opening in view--as one star
+disappears, another shines out, as in the cathedral at Bourgos in Spain.
+
+[Illustration: TOWER OF ST PIERRE. CAEN.]
+
+In the interior, the nave is chiefly remarkable for its proportions; but
+the choir is richly ornamented in the style of the renaissance.[15] It
+has been restored at different periods, but, as usual in France, the
+whole interior has been coloured or whitewashed, so that it is difficult
+to detect the old work from the new. The sculptured pendants and the
+decorations of the aisles will attract us by their boldness and
+originality, and the curious legends in stone on the capitals of the
+pillars, of 'Alexander and his Mistress,' of 'Launcelot crossing the Sea
+on his Sword,' and of 'St. Paul being lowered in a Basket,' may take
+our attention a little too much from the carving in the chapels; but
+when we have examined them all, we shall probably remember St. Pierre
+best as Prout and Pugin have shewn it to us, and care for it most (as do
+the inhabitants of Caen) for its beautiful exterior.[16]
+
+We should mention a handsome carved oak pulpit in the style of the
+fifteenth century, which has lately been erected; it is an ornament to
+the church in spite of its new and temporary appearance--taking away
+from the cold effect of the interior, and relieving the monotony of its
+aisles. The people of Caen are indebted to M. V. Hugot, cure of St.
+Pierre, for this pulpit. 'A mon arrivee dans la paroisse,' he says (in a
+little pamphlet sold in the church), 'un des premiers objets qui durent
+appeler mes soins c'etait le retablissement d'une chaire a precher.' The
+pulpit and staircase are elaborately carved and decorated with
+statuettes, bas-reliefs, &c., which the pamphlet describes at length,
+ending with the information that it is not yet paid for.
+
+The most interesting and characteristic buildings in Caen, its
+historical monuments in fact, are the two royal abbeys of William the
+Conqueror--_St. Etienne_, called the 'Abbaye aux Hommes,' and _la Ste.
+Trinite_, the 'Abbaye aux Dames'--both founded and built in the eleventh
+century; the first (containing the tomb of the Conqueror) with two
+plain, massive towers, with spires; and an interior remarkable for its
+strength and solidity--'a perfect example of Norman Romanesque;'
+adorned, it must be added, with twenty-four nineteenth-century
+chandeliers with glass lustres suspended by cords from the roof; and
+with gas brackets of a Birmingham pattern.
+
+The massive grandeur, and the 'newness,' if we may use the word, of the
+interior of _St. Etienne_, are its most remarkable features; the plain
+marble slab in the chancel, marking the spot where William the
+Conqueror was buried and disinterred (with the three mats placed in
+front of it for prayer), is shewn with much ceremony by the custodian of
+the place.
+
+The Abbaye aux Dames is built on high ground at the opposite side of the
+town, and is surrounded by conventual buildings of modern date. It
+resembles the Abbaye aux Hommes in point of style, but the carving is
+more elaborate, and the transepts are much grander in design; the
+beautiful key-pattern borders, and the grotesque carving on the capitals
+of some of the pillars, strike the eye at once; but what is most
+remarkable is the extraordinary care with which the building has been
+restored, and the whole interior so scraped and chiselled afresh that it
+has the appearance of a building of to-day. The eastern end and the
+chancel are partitioned off for the use of the nuns attached to the
+Hotel Dieu; the sister who conducts us round this part of the building
+raises a curtain, softly stretched across the chancel-screen, and shews
+us twenty or thirty of them at prayers.
+
+We can see the hospital wards in the cloisters, and, if we desire it,
+ascend the eastern tower, and obtain a view over a vast extent of
+country, and of the town of Caen, set in the midst of gardens and green
+meadows, and the river, with boats and white sails, winding far away to
+the sea.
+
+'These two royal abbeys,' writes Dawson Turner, 'which have fortunately
+escaped the storm of the Revolution, are still an ornament to the town,
+an honour to the sovereign who caused them to be erected, and to the
+artist who produced them. Both edifices rose at the same time and from
+the same motive. William the Conqueror, by his union with Matilda, had
+contracted a marriage proscribed by the decrees of consanguinity. The
+clergy, and especially the Archbishop of Rouen, inveighed against the
+union; and the Pope issued an injunction, that the royal pair should
+erect two monasteries by way of penance, one for monks, the other for
+nuns; as well as that the Duke should found four hospices, each for 100
+poor persons. In obedience to this command, William founded the Church
+of St. Stephen, and Matilda, the Church of the Holy Trinity.
+
+It is usual on this spot to recount the pitiful, but rather apocryphal
+story of the burial of William the Conqueror, by a 'simple knight;' of
+its dramatic interruption by one of the bystanders, a 'man of low
+degree,' who claimed the site of the grave, and was appeased with 60
+sous; and of the subsequent disturbance and destruction of his tomb by
+the Huguenots; but the artistic traveller will be more interested in
+these buildings as monuments of the architecture of the eleventh
+century, and to notice the marks of the chisel and the mason's
+hieroglyphics made in days so long gone by, that history itself becomes
+indistinct without these landmarks--marks and signs that neither armies
+of revolutionists nor eight centuries of time have been able to destroy.
+
+We speak of 'eight centuries' in two words (the custodian of the place
+has them glibly on his tongue), but it is difficult to comprehend this
+space of time; to realise the fact of the great human tide that has
+ebbed and flowed through these aisles for eleven generations--smoothing
+the pillars by its constant wave, but leaving no more mark upon them
+than the sea on the rocks of Calvados.
+
+The contemplation of these two monuments may suggest a comparison
+between two others that are rising up in western London at the present
+time,--the 'Albert Memorial' and the 'Hall of Science.' They (the old
+and the new) stand, as it were, at the two extremities of a long line of
+kings, a line commencing with 'William the Bold,' and ending with
+'Albert the Good;' the earlier monuments dedicated to Religion, the
+latter to Science and Art--the first to commemorate a warrior, the
+latter a man of peace--the first endurable through many ages, the latter
+destructible in a few years.[17]
+
+The comparison is surely worth making, for is it not curiously typical
+of the state of monumental art in England in the present day, that we
+are only doing what our ancestors did better? They erected useful,
+appropriate, and endurable monuments which are still crowning ornaments
+to the town of Caen. Are either of our 'memorials' likely to fulfil
+these conditions?
+
+Not to go further into detail, there is no doubt that, elaborate and
+magnificent as the 'Albert Memorial' may be, it is useless,
+inappropriate, and out of place in Hyde Park; and that the 'Hall of
+Science' at South Kensington (whatever its use may be) is not likely to
+attract foreign nations by the external beauty of its design.
+
+At Caen we are in an atmosphere of heroes and kings, we pass from one
+historical site to another until the mind becomes half confused; we are
+shown (by the same valet-de-place) the tomb of the Conqueror, and the
+house where Beau Brummel died. We see the ruins of a castle on the
+heights where le 'jeune et beau Dunois' performed historical prodigies
+of valour; and the chapel where he 'allait prier Marie, benir ses
+exploits.' But the modern military aspect of things is, we are bound to
+confess, prosaic to a degree; we find the Dunois of the period occupied
+in more peaceful pursuits, mending shoes, tending little children, and
+carrying wood for winter fires.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There are many other buildings and churches at Caen which we should
+examine, especially the exterior carving of '_St. Etienne-le-vieux_;'
+which is now used as a warehouse.
+
+The cathedrals and monuments are generally, as we have said, in
+wonderful preservation, but they are desecrated without remorse; on
+every side of them, and, indeed, upon them, are staring advertisements
+of 'magazines,' dedicated '_au bon diable_,' '_au petit diable_,' or to
+some other presiding genius; of '_magasins les plus vastes du monde_,'
+and of '_loteries imperiales de France;_' whichever way we turn, we
+cannot get rid of these staring affiches; even upon the 'footsteps of
+the Conqueror' the bill-sticker seems master of the situation.
+
+We must now speak of Caen as we see it on fete days, but for the
+information of those who are interested in it as a place of residence,
+we may allude in passing to the very pleasant English society that has
+grown up here of late years, to the moderate rents of houses, the good
+schools and masters to be met with; the comparative cheapness of
+provisions and of articles of clothing, and to the good accommodation at
+the principal inns. The situation of Caen, although not perhaps as
+healthy as Avranches, is much more convenient and accessible from
+England.
+
+_Caen, Sunday, August_, 186-. It is early on Sunday morning, and Caen is
+_en fete_. We have reason to know it by the clamour of church bells
+which attends the sun's rising. There is terrible energy, not to say
+harshness, in thus ushering in the day. On a mountain side, or in some
+remote village, the distant sound of bells is musical enough, but here
+it is dinned into our ears to distraction; and there seems no method in
+the madness of these sturdy Catholics, for they make the tower of St.
+Pierre vibrate to most uncertain sounds. They ring out all at once with
+a burst and tumble over one another, hopelessly involved, _en masse;_ a
+combination terribly dissonant to unaccustomed ears. Then comes the
+military _reveille_, and the deafening 'rataplan' of regimental drums,
+and the town is soon alive with people arriving and departing by the
+early trains; whilst others collect in the market-place in holiday
+attire with baskets of flowers, and commence the erection of an altar
+to the Virgin in the middle of the square. Then women bring their
+children dressed in white, with bouquets of flowers and white favours,
+and a procession is formed (with a priest at the head) and marshalled
+through the principal streets and back again to where the altar to 'Our
+Lady' stands, now decorated with a profusion of flowers and an effigy of
+the Virgin.
+
+All this time the bells are ringing at intervals, and omnibuses loaded
+with holiday people rattle past with shouting and cracking of whips. The
+old fashion and the new become mingled and confused, old white caps and
+Parisian bonnets, old ceremonies and modern ways; the Norman peasant and
+the English school-girl walk side by side in the crowd, whilst the
+western door of the Church of St. Pierre, to which they are tending,
+bears in flaming characters the name of a vendor of '_modes
+parisiennes_' Men, women, and children, in gay and new attire, fill the
+streets and quite outnumber those of the peasant class; the black coat
+and hat predominate on fete days; a play-bill is thrust into our hands
+announcing the performance of an opera in the evening, and we are
+requested frequently to partake of coffee, syrop, and bonbons as we make
+our way through the Rue St. Pierre and across the crowded square.
+
+Stay here for a moment and witness a little episode--another accidental
+collision between the old world and the new.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+An undergraduate, just arrived from England on the 'grand tour,' gets
+into a wrangle with an old woman in the market-place; an old woman of
+nearly eighty years, with a cap as old and ideas as primitive as her
+dress, but with a sense of humour and natural combativeness that enables
+her to hold her own in lively sallies and smart repartees against her
+youthful antagonist.[18] It is a curious contrast, the wrinkled old
+woman of Caen and the English lad--the one full of the realities and
+cares of life; born in revolutionary days, and remembering in her
+childhood Charlotte Corday going down this very street on her terrible
+mission to Paris; her daughters married, her only son killed in war, her
+life now (it never was much else) an uneventful round of market days,
+eating and sleeping, knitting and prayers; the other--young, careless,
+fresh to the world, his head stored with heathen mythology, the loves of
+the Gods, and problems of Euclid--taking a light for his pipe from the
+old woman, and airing his French in a discussion upon a variety of
+topics, from the price of apples to the cost of a dispensation; the
+conversation merging finally into a regular religious discussion, in
+which the disputants were more abroad than ever,--a religion outwardly
+represented, in the one case by so many chapels, in the other by so many
+beads.
+
+It is a '_fete_' to day (according to a notice pasted upon a stone
+pillar) '_avec Indulgence pleniere_,'
+
+  GRAND MESSE a 10 a.m.,
+  LES VEPRES a 3 p.m.,
+  SALUT ET BENEDICTION DU SACRAMENT,
+  SERMON, &c.'
+
+Let us now follow the crowd (up the street we saw in the illustration)
+into the Church of St. Pierre, which is already overflowing with people
+coming and going, pushing past each other through the baize door,
+dropping sous into the '_tronc pour les pauvres_,' and receiving, with
+bowed head and crossed breast, the holy water, administered with a
+brush.
+
+We pay two sous for a chair and take our places, under a fire of glances
+from our neighbours, who pray the while, and tell their beads; and we
+have scarcely time to notice the beautiful proportions of the nave, the
+carving in the side chapels, or the grotesque figures that we have
+before alluded to, when the service commences, and we can just discern
+in the distance the priests at the high altar (looking in their bright
+stiff robes, and with their backs to the people, like golden beetles
+under a microscope); we cannot hear distinctly, for the moving of the
+crowd about us, the creaking of chairs, and the whispering of many
+voices; but we can see the incense rising, the children in white robes
+swinging silver chains, and the cocked hat of the tall 'Suisse' moving
+to and fro.
+
+Presently the congregation sits down, the organ peals forth and a choir
+of sweet voices chaunts the 'Agnus Dei.' Again the congregation kneels
+to the sound of a silver bell; the smoke of incense curls through the
+aisles, and the golden beetles move up and down; again there is a
+scraping of chairs, a shuffling of feet, and a general movement towards
+the pulpit, the men standing in groups round it with their hats in their
+hands; then a pause, and for the first time so deep a silence that we
+can hear the movement of the crowd outside, and the distant rattle of
+drums.
+
+All eyes are now turned to the preacher; a man of about forty, of an
+austere but ordinary (we might almost say low) type of face, closely
+shaven, with an ivory crucifix at his side and a small black book in his
+hand. He makes his way through the crowded aisles, and ascends the new
+pulpit in the centre of the church, where everyone of the vast
+congregation can both see and hear him.
+
+His voice was powerful (almost too loud sometimes) and most persuasive;
+he was eloquent and impassioned, but he used little gesture or any
+artifice to engage attention. He commenced with a rhapsody--startling in
+the sudden flow of its eloquence, thrilling in its higher tones, tender
+and compassionate (almost to tears) in its lower passages--a rhapsody to
+the Virgin--
+
+  'O sweet head of my mother; sacred eyes!'
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+and then an appeal--an appeal for us 'true Catholics' to the 'Queen of
+Heaven, the beautiful, the adorable.' He elevated our hearts with his
+moving voice, and, by what we might call the electricity of sympathy,
+almost to a frenzy of adoration; he taught us how the true believer,
+'clad in hope,' would one day (if he leaned upon Mary his mother in all
+the weary stages of the 'Passage of the Cross') be crowned with
+fruition. He lingered with almost idolatrous emphasis on the charms of
+Mary, and with his eyes fixed upon her image, his hands outstretched,
+and a thousand upturned faces listening to his words, the aisles echoed
+his romantic theme:--
+
+  'With my lips I kneel, and with my heart,
+  I fall about thy feet and worship thee.'
+
+A stream of eloquence followed--studied or spontaneous it mattered
+not--the congregation held their breath and listened to a story for the
+thousandth time repeated.
+
+The preacher paused for a moment, and then with another burst of
+eloquence, he brought his hearers to the verge of a passion, which was
+(as it seemed to us) dangerously akin to human love and the worship of
+material beauty; then he lowered our understandings still more by the
+enumeration of 'works and miracles,' and ended with words of earnest
+exhortation, the burden of which might be shortly translated:--'Pray
+earnestly, and always, to Mary our mother, for all souls in purgatory;
+confess your sins unto us your high priests; give, give to the Church
+and to the poor, strive to lead better lives, look forward ever to the
+end; and bow down, oh! bow down, before the golden images [manufactured
+for us in the next street] which our Holy Mother the Church has set up.'
+
+With a transition almost as startling as the first, the book is closed,
+the preacher has left the pulpit, the congregation (excepting a few in
+the side chapels) have dispersed; and Caen keeps holiday after the
+manner of all good Catholics, putting on its best attire, and disporting
+itself in somewhat rampant fashion.
+
+Everybody visits everybody else to-day, and a fiacre is hardly to be
+obtained for the afternoon drive in _Les Cours_, the public promenade.
+We may go to the Jardin des Plantes, which we shall find crowded with
+country people, examining the beautiful exotic plants (of which there
+are several thousand); to the public Picture Gallery, established at the
+beginning of the present century, which contains pictures by Paul
+Veronese, Perugino, Poussin, and a number of works of the French school;
+and to the Museum of Antiquities, containing Roman remains, vases,
+coins, &c., discovered in the neighbourhood of Dives. There are also
+excursions to Bayeux, Honfleur, and Trouville for the day; and many
+tempting opportunities of visiting the neighbouring towns.
+
+But we may be most amused by mixing with the crowd, or by listening to
+the performance on the _Place royale_ of a company of foreign
+musicians--shabby and dingy in aspect, enthusiastic and poor--who had
+found their way here in time to entertain the trim holiday makers of
+Caen. They were of that ragged and unkempt order of slovenly brotherhood
+that the goddess of music claims for her own; let them call themselves
+'wandering minstrels,' 'Arabs,' or what not (their collars were limp,
+and they rejoiced in smoke), they had certainly an ear for harmony, and
+a 'soul for music;' a talent in most of them, half cultivated and
+scarcely understood. A woman in a German, or Swiss, costume levied rapid
+contributions amongst the crowd, which seemed to prefer listening to
+this performance than to any other 'distraction,' not excepting the
+modern and exciting performance of velocipede races outside the town.
+
+The streets are crowded all day with holiday people, and somewhat
+obstructed by the fashion of the inhabitants taking their meals in the
+street. We also, in the evening, dine at an open cafe (with a marble
+table and a pebble floor) amidst a clamour and confusion of voices,
+under the shadow of old eaves--with creepers and flowers twining round
+nearly every window, where the pigeons lurk and dive at stray morsels.
+The evening is calm and bright and the sky overhead a deep blue, but we
+are chattering, laughing, eating, and smoking, clinking glasses and
+shouting to waiters; we drown even the sound of the church clocks, and
+if it were not for the little flower girls with their '_deux sous,
+chaque_' and their winning smiles, and for the children playing on the
+ground around us, we might soon forget our better natures in the din of
+this culinary pandemonium.
+
+But we are in good company; three tall mugs of cider are on the next
+table to our own, a dark, stout figure, with shaven crown, is seated
+with his back to us--it is the preacher of the morning, who with two lay
+friends for companions, also keeps the feast.
+
+
+_DIVES._
+
+Before leaving the neighbourhood of Caen, the antiquary and historically
+minded traveller will naturally turn aside and pay a visit to the town
+of DIVES, about eighteen miles distant, near the sea shore to
+the north-east, on the right bank of the river Dives. It is interesting
+to us not only as an ancient Roman town, and as being the place of
+embarkation of the Conqueror's flotilla, from whence it drifted, with
+favourable winds, to St. Valery--but because it possesses the remains of
+one of the finest twelfth-century churches in Normandy. We find hardly
+any mention of this church in 'Murray,' and it stands almost deserted by
+the town which once surrounded it, and by the sea, on the shore of which
+it was originally built. At the present time there are not more than
+eight or nine hundred inhabitants, but we can judge by the size of the
+old covered market-place, and the extent of the boundaries of the town,
+that it must have been a seaport of considerable importance. Dives was
+once rich, but no longer bears out the meaning of its name; in
+comparison to the thriving town of Cabourg (which it joins), it is more
+like Lazarus sitting at the gate.
+
+The interior of the church at Dives has been restored, repaired, and
+whitewashed; but neither time nor whitewash can conceal the lovely
+proportions of the building; the pillars and aisles, and the carving
+over the doorways which the twelfth-century mason fashioned so tenderly
+have little left of his most delicate workmanship; half of the stained
+glass in the chancel windows has been destroyed, and the pinnacles on
+the roof have been broken down by rude hands. Nevertheless it is a
+church worth going far to see; and it will have exceptional interest for
+those who believe that their ancestors 'came over with the Conqueror,'
+for on the western wall there is a list of the names of the principal
+persons who were known to have accompanied him. Some of these names are
+very familiar to English ears, such as PERCY, TALBOT, VERNON, LOVEL,
+GIFFARD, BREWER, PIGOT, CARTERET, CRESPEN, &c.; and there are at
+least a hundred others, all in legible characters, which any visitor may
+decipher for himself. There is a small grass-grown church-yard
+surrounded by a low wall, but the tablets are of comparatively modern
+date.
+
+If, before leaving Dives, we take a walk up the hill on the east side of
+the town, and look down upon the broad valley, with the river Dives
+winding southwards through a rich pasture land, flanked with thickly
+wooded hills--and beyond it the river Orne, leading to Caen--we shall
+see at once what a favourable and convenient spot this must have been
+for the collecting together of an army of fifty thousand men, for the
+construction of vessels, and for the embarkation of troops and horses,
+and the _materiel_ of war; and, if we continue our walk, through one or
+two cornfields in the direction of Beuzeval, we shall find, on a
+promontory facing the sea, and overlooking the mouth of the river, a not
+very ornamental, round stone pillar placed here by the Archaeological
+Society of France in 1861; 'AU SOUVENIR DU PLUS GRAND EVENEMENT
+HISTORIQUE DES ANNALES NORMANDES--LE DEPART DU DUC GUILLAUME LE BATARD
+POUR LA CONQUETE DE L'ANGLETERRE EN 1066;' and, if the reader
+should be as fortunate as we were in 1869, he might find a french
+gentleman _standing upon the top of this column_, and (forgetting
+probably that Normandy was not _always_ part of France) blowing a blast
+of triumph seaward, from a cracked french horn.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_BAYEUX._
+
+
+The approach to the town of Bayeux from the west, either by the old road
+from Caen or by the railway, is always striking. The reader may
+perchance remember how in old coaching days in England on arriving near
+some cathedral town, at a certain turn of the road, the first sight of
+some well-known towers or spires came into view. Thus there are certain
+spots from which we remember Durham, and from which we have seen
+Salisbury; and thus, there is a view of all others which we identify
+with Bayeux. We have chosen to present it to the reader as we first saw
+it and sketched it (before the completion of the new central
+semi-grecian cupola); when the graceful proportions of the two western
+spires were seen to much greater advantage than at present.
+
+The cathedral has been drawn and photographed from many points of view;
+Pugin has given the elevation of the west front, and the town and
+cathedral together have been made the subject of drawings by several
+well-known artists; but returning to Bayeux after an absence of many
+years, and examining it from every side, we find no position from which
+we can obtain a distant view to such advantage as that near the railway
+station, which we have shewn in the sketch at the head of this chapter.
+
+The repose--the solemnity we might almost call it--that pervades Bayeux
+even in this busy nineteenth century, is the first thing that strikes a
+stranger; a repose the more solemn and mysterious when we think of its
+rude history of wars, of pillage, and massacres, and of its destruction
+more than once by fire and sword. From the days when the town consisted
+of a few rude huts (in the time of the Celts), all through the
+splendours of the time of the Norman dukes, and the more terrible days
+of the Reformation, it is prominent in history; but Bayeux is now a
+place of peaceful industry, with about 10,000 inhabitants, 'a quiet,
+dull, ecclesiastical city,' as the guide books express it; with an
+aspect almost as undisturbed as a cathedral close. There are a few paved
+streets with cafes and shops, as usual, but the most industrious
+inhabitants appear to be the lacemakers--women seated at the doorways of
+the old houses, wearing the quaint horseshoe comb and white cap with
+fan-like frill, which are peculiar to Bayeux.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Every building of importance has a semi-ecclesiastical character; the
+feeling seeming to have especially pervaded the designers of the
+thirteenth-century houses, as we may see from this rough sketch made at
+a street corner. Many houses have such figures carved in _wood_ upon
+them, and we may sometimes see a little stone spire on a roof top; the
+architects appearing to have aimed at expressing in this way their love
+and admiration for the cathedral, and to have emulated the Gothic
+character of its decorations; the conventual and neighbouring buildings
+harmonizing with it in a manner impossible to describe in words. Even
+the principal inn, called the 'Hotel du Luxembourg,' partakes of the
+quiet air of the place; the walls of the _salle a manger_ are covered
+with pictures of saints and martyrs, and the houses we can see from its
+windows are built and carved in stone.
+
+The chief object of interest is, undoubtedly, the cathedral itself, for
+although we may find many curious old houses, everything gives way in
+importance and interest to this one central building. The noble west
+front, with its pointed Gothic towers and spires, is familiar to us in
+many an engraving and painting, but what these illustrations do not give
+us on a small scale is the beauty of the carved doorways, the
+clustering of the ornaments about them, and the statues of bishops,
+priests, and kings. Later than the cathedral itself, and 'debased in
+style' (as our severe architectural friends will tell us), the work on
+these beautiful porches has exquisite grace; the fourteenth-century
+sculptor gave free scope to his fancy, his hands have played about the
+soft white stone till it took forms so delicate and strange, so
+unsubstantial and yet so permanent, that it is a marvel of the
+sculptor's skill.[19]
+
+The interior is 315 feet long and 81 feet high, open from one end to the
+other, and forms a very striking and imposing effect. 'The west end,' to
+quote a few words from the best technical authority, 'consists of florid
+Norman arches and piers, whose natural heaviness is relieved by the
+beautifully diapered patterns wrought upon the walls, probably built by
+Henry I., who destroyed the previously existing church by fire. Above
+this, runs a blank trefoiled arcade in the place of a triforium,
+surrounded by a clerestory of early-pointed windows, very lofty and
+narrow. The arches of the nave, nearest the cross and the choir, ending
+in a semi-circle, exhibit a more advanced state of the pointed style,
+and are distinguished by the remarkable elegance of their graceful
+clustered pillars. The circular ornaments in the spandrils of the arches
+are very pleasing and of fanciful variety.'
+
+We see in the interior of this cathedral a confusion of styles--a
+conflict of grace and beauty with rude and grotesque work. The
+delicately-traced patterns carved on the walls, the medallions and
+pendant ornaments, in stone, of the thirteenth century, are scarcely
+surpassed at Chartres; side by side with these, there are headless and
+armless statues of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which have been
+painted, and tablets (such as we have sketched) to commemorate the
+ancient founders of the church; and underneath the choir, the crypt of
+Bishop Odo, the Conqueror's half-brother, with its twelve massive
+pillars, which formed the foundation of the original church, built in
+1077.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the nave we may admire the beautiful radiating chapels, with their
+curious frescoes (some destroyed by damp and others evidently effaced by
+rude hands); and we may examine the bronze pulpit, with a figure of the
+Virgin trampling on the serpent; the dark, carved woodwork in the
+chancel; the old books with clasps (that Haag, or Werner, would delight
+in), and two quite modern stone pulpits or lecterns, with vine leaves
+twining up them in the form of a cross, the carving of which is equal
+to any of the old work--the rugged vine stem and the soft leaves being
+wonderfully rendered.
+
+The interior is disfigured by some gaudy colouring under the new cupola,
+and the effect of the west end is, as usual, ruined by the organ loft.
+There are very fine stained-glass windows, some quite modern, but so
+good both in colour and design, that we cannot look at them without
+rebelling in our minds, against the conventionality of much of the
+modern work in english churches.[20] It seems not unreasonable to look
+forward to the time when it shall be accounted a sin to present
+caricatures of scriptural subjects in memorial church-windows. Let us
+rather have the kaleidescope a thousand times repeated, or the simplest
+diaper pattern on ground glass, than 'Jonahs' or 'Daniels,' as they are
+represented in these days; we are tired of the twelve apostles, so
+smooth and clean, in their robes of red and blue (the particular red and
+blue that will come best out of the melting-pot), of yellow glories and
+impossible temples.
+
+The long-neglected art of staining glass being once more revived, let us
+hope that, with it, a taste will grow up for something better than a
+repetition of the grotesque.
+
+But it is the exterior of Bayeux Cathedral that will be remembered best,
+the beauty and simplicity of its design; its 'sky line,' that we pointed
+out at a distance, at the beginning of this chapter, which (like the
+curve of the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and many an english
+nineteenth-century church we could name), leaves an impression of beauty
+on the mind that the more ornate work of the Renaissance fails to give
+us. It is an illustration in architecture, of what we have ventured to
+call the 'simple right' and the 'elaborate wrong;' like the composition
+of Raphael's Holy Family (drawn on the head of a tub), it was _right_,
+whilst its thousand imitations have been wrong.
+
+And if any argument or evidence were wanting, of the beauty and fitness
+of Gothic architecture as the central feature of interest, and as a
+connecting link between the artistic taste of a past and present age, we
+could point to no more striking instance than this cathedral. It has
+above all things the appearance of a natural and spontaneous growth,
+harmonizing with the aspect of the place and with the feelings of the
+people.
+
+A silence falls upon the town of Bayeux sometimes, as if the world were
+deserted by its inhabitants; a silence which we notice, to the same
+extent, in no other cathedral city. We look round and wonder where all
+the people are; whether there is really anybody to buy and sell, and
+carry on business, in the regular worldly way; or whether it is peopled
+only with strange memories and histories of the past.
+
+On every side there are landmarks of cruel wars and the sites of
+battles--nearly every old house has a legend or a history attached to
+it; and all about the cathedral precincts, with its old lime trees--in
+snug, quiet courtyards, under gate-ways, and in stiff, formal gardens
+behind high walls--we may see where the old bishops and canons of Bayeux
+lived and died; the house where 'Master Wace' toiled for many unwearied
+years, and where he had audience with the travelling _raconteurs_ of the
+time who came to listen to him, and to repeat far and wide the words of
+the historian.[21]
+
+The silence of Bayeux is peopled with so many memories, of wars so
+terrible, and of legends so wild and weird, that a book might be
+written about Bayeux and called 'The Past.' We must not trench upon the
+work of the antiquary, or we might point out where Henry I. of England
+attacked and destroyed the city, and the exact spot in the market-place
+where they first lighted the flames of Revolution; but we may dwell for
+a moment upon one or two curious customs and legends connected with
+Bayeux.
+
+The 'Fete of the three Kings' (a remnant of a custom in the time of the
+Druids) is still religiously observed by its inhabitants, and
+incantations and ceremonies are kept up by the country people around
+Bayeux, especially on the eve of this fete. The time is winter, and
+around the town of Bayeux (as many visitors may have noticed) a curious
+fog or mist hangs over the fields and the neighbouring gardens, through
+which the towers of the cathedral are seen like phantoms; it is then
+that the peasants light their torches, and both priests and people
+wander in procession through the fields, singing in a loud, but mournful
+tone, a strange and quaint ditty. Thus their fields and the crops (which
+they are about to sow) will be productive, and a good harvest bless the
+land!
+
+We are still in the middle ages at Bayeux, we believe implicitly in
+witches, in good omens, and in fairy rings; we are told gravely by an
+old inhabitant that a knight of Argouges, near Bayeux, was protected by
+a good fairy in his encounter with some great enemy, and we are shewn,
+in proof of the assertion, the family arms of the house of Argouges,
+with a female figure in the costume of Lady Godiva of Coventry, and the
+motto, _a la fee_; and we hear so many other romantic stories of the
+dark ages, that history at last becomes enveloped in a cloud of haze,
+like the town of Bayeux itself on a winter's night.
+
+We must now pass from the region of romance and fable to its very
+antipodes in realism; to the examination of a strip of fine linen cloth
+of the colour of brown holland, which is exhibited in the Public Library
+at Bayeux.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This world-renowned relic of antiquity, which Dibdin half-satirically
+describes as 'an exceedingly curious document of the conjugal attachment
+and enthusiastic veneration of Matilda,' is now kept with the greatest
+care, and is displayed on a stand under a glass case, in its entire
+length, 227 feet. It is about 20 inches wide, and is divided into 72
+compartments. Every line is expressed by coarse stitches of coloured
+thread or worsted, of which this arrow's head is a facsimile, and the
+figures are worked in various colours, the groundwork and the flesh
+tints being generally left white. The extraordinary preservation of the
+tapestry, when we consider, not only the date of the work, but the
+vicissitudes to which it has been subjected, is so remarkable, that the
+spectator is disposed to ask to see the 'original,' feeling sure that
+this fresh, bright-looking piece of work cannot have lasted thus for
+eight hundred years. And when we remember that it was carried from town
+to town by order of Napoleon I., and also exhibited on the stage on
+certain occasions; that it has survived the Revolution, and that the
+cathedral, which it was originally intended to adorn, has long been
+levelled with the ground, we cannot help approaching it with more than
+ordinary interest; an interest in which the inhabitants, and even the
+ecclesiastics of Bayeux, scarcely seem to share. It was but a few years
+ago that the priests of the cathedral, when asked by a traveller to be
+permitted to see the tapestry, were unable to point it out; they knew
+that the '_toile St. Jean_,' as it is called, was annually displayed in
+the Cathedral on St. John's Day, but of its historical and antiquarian
+interest they seemed to take little heed.
+
+The scenes, which (as is well known) represent the principal events in
+the Norman Conquest, are arranged in fifty-eight groups. The legend of
+the first runs thus:--
+
+     Le roi Edouard ordonne a Harold d'aller apprendre au duc Guillaume
+     qu'il sera un jour roi d'Angleterre, &c.
+
+After the interview between the 'sainted' King Edward and Harold, the
+latter starts on his mission to 'Duke William,' and in the next group we
+see Harold, '_en marche_,' with a hawk on his wrist--then entering a
+church (the ancient abbey of Bosham, in Sussex), and the clergy praying
+for his safety before embarking, and--next, '_en mer_.' We see him
+captured on landing, by Guy de Ponthieu, and afterwards surrounded by
+the ambassadors whom William sends for his release; the little figure
+holding the horses being one Tyrold, a dependant of Odo, Bishop of
+Bayeux, and the artist (it is generally supposed) who designed the
+tapestry. Then we see Harold received in state at Rouen by Duke William,
+and afterwards, their setting out together for Mont St. Michael, and
+Dinan; and other episodes of the war in Brittany. We next see Harold in
+England, at the funeral of Edward the Confessor, and have a curious view
+of Westminster Abbey, in red and green worsted. After the death of King
+Edward, we have another group, where 'Edouard (in extremis) parle aux
+hommes de sa cour;' evidently an after-thought, or a mistake in taking
+up the designs to work in their proper order. Harold is crowned, but
+with an ill omen (from the Norman point of view), as represented in the
+tapestry by an evil star--a comet of extravagant size, upon which the
+people gaze with most comical expressions of wonder and alarm.
+
+Harold began his reign well, says an old chronicler, he 'stablysshed
+good lawes, specyally for the defence of holy churche;' but soon he
+'waxed so proud and covetouse,' that he became unpopular with his
+subjects.
+
+Then follows the great historical event, of 'THE INVASION OF
+ENGLAND BY THE CONQUEROR,' and we have all the details portrayed of
+the felling of trees, constructing ships, transporting of cavalry, and
+the like; we see the preparations for the commissariat, and the curious
+implements of warfare, shewing, amongst other things, the lack of iron
+in those days; the spades, for use in earthworks and fortifications,
+being only _tipped_ with iron. The bustle and excitement attendant upon
+the embarcation are given with wonderful reality; and there is many a
+quaint and natural touch in the attitudes and expressions of these red
+and yellow men.
+
+The landing in Pevensey bay is next given (the horses being swung out of
+the ships with cranes and pulleys as in the present day), and soon
+afterwards, the preparations for a feast; the artist at this point
+becoming apparently imbued with the true British idea that nothing could
+be done without a dinner. There must be a grand historical picture of a
+banquet before the fight, and so, like Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon,
+William the Conqueror has his 'night before the battle,' and, perhaps,
+it is the most faithful representation of the three.
+
+Of the battle of Hastings itself, of the consternation at one time
+amongst the troops at the report of William's death, of the charge of
+cavalry, with William on a tremendous black horse (riding as straight in
+the saddle as in our own day), of the cutting to pieces of the enemy, of
+the stripping the wounded on the ground, and of Harold's defeat and
+death, there are several very spirited representations.
+
+For our illustration we have chosen a scene where the battle is at its
+height, and the melee is given with great vigour. These figures on the
+tapestry are coloured green and yellow (for there was evidently not much
+choice of colours), and the chain armour is left white. The woodcut is
+about a third of the size, and is, as nearly as possible, a _facsimile_
+of the original.
+
+[Illustration: Facsimile of Bayeux Tapestry.]
+
+The last group is thus described in the catalogue:--
+
+
+     'ET FVGA VETERVNT ANGLI.
+
+     'Et les Anglais furent mis en fuite. Des hommes a pied, armes de
+     haches et d'ipies, combattent contre les cavaliers: mais _la
+     defaite des Anglais est complete_; ils sont poursuivis a toute
+     outrance par les Normands vainqueurs.
+
+     'La scene suivante reprisentent des herauts d'armes a pied, et des
+     cavaliers galoppant a toute bride pour annoncer probablement le
+     succes du Conquerant; mais l'interruption subite du monument ne
+     permet plus de continuer cette chronique figurie, qui allait
+     vraisemblablement jusqu'au couronnement de Guillaume.
+
+The _design_ of the tapestry is very unequal, some of the latter scenes
+being weak in comparison, especially that of the _death of Harold_; the
+eleventh-century artist, perhaps becoming tired of the work, or having,
+more probably, a presentiment that this scene would be painted and
+exhibited annually, by English artists, to the end of time. Perhaps the
+most interesting and important scenes are:--first, when Harold takes the
+oath of allegiance to William, with his hands leaning on two ark-like
+shrines, full of the relics plundered from churches; next, the awful
+catastrophe of the _malfosse_, where men and horses, Norman and Saxon,
+are seen rolling together in the ditch; and, lastly, the ultra-grotesque
+tableaux of stripping the wounded after the battle.
+
+The borders on the latter part of the tapestry (part of which we have
+shewn in the illustration) consist of incidents connected with the
+battle, and add greatly to its interest. Some of the earlier scenes are
+very amusing, having evidently been suggested by the fables of AEsop and
+Phaedrus; there are griffins, dragons, serpents, dogs, elephants, lions,
+birds, and monsters that suggest a knowledge of pre-Adamite life (some
+biting their own tails, or putting their heads into their neighbours'
+mouths), interspersed with representations of ploughing, and hunting,
+and of killing birds with a sling and a stone.[22]
+
+The most striking thing about the tapestry is the charming freshness and
+_naivete_ with which the scenes and characters are depicted. The artist
+who designed it did not draw figures particularly well, he was ignorant
+of perspective, and all principles of colouring; but he gave, in his own
+way, expression to his faces, and attitudes which tell their story even
+without the help of the latin inscriptions which accompany them. Shade
+is often represented by colour, and that not always strictly in
+accordance with nature; thus, a red horse will be represented with one
+leg worked in blue, and so on; the faces and naked limbs of the warriors
+being worked in green or yellow, or left white, apparently as was found
+most convenient by the ladies of the time.
+
+Whether Queen Matilda, or the ladies of her court, ever really worked
+the tapestry (there is good reason to doubt that she designed the
+borders) is a question of so little importance, that it is wonderful so
+much discussion has been raised upon it; it is surely enough for us to
+know that it was worked soon after the Conquest. There is evidence of
+this, and also that Odo, Bishop of Bayeux (the Conqueror's
+half-brother), ordered and arranged the work to the exact length of the
+walls of the church, round which it was intended that it should have
+been placed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_ST. LO--COUTANCES--GRANVILLE. (CHERBOURG.)_
+
+
+On our way to ST. LO, COUTANCES, and GRANVILLE on the
+western coast of Normandy, we may do well--if we are interested in the
+appliances of modern warfare, and would obtain any idea of the
+completeness and magnificence of the French Imperial Marine--to see
+something of CHERBOURG, situated near the bold headland of Cap
+de la Hague.
+
+If we look about us as we approach the town, we shall see that the
+railway is cut through an extraordinary natural fortification of rocks;
+and if we ascend the heights of Le Roule, we shall obtain, what a
+Frenchman calls, a _vue feerique du Cherbourg_. We shall look down upon
+the magnificent harbour with its breakwater and surrounding forts, and
+see a fleet of iron-clads at anchor, surrounded by smaller vessels of
+all nations; gun-boats, turret-ships and every modern invention in the
+art of maritime war, but scarcely any ships of commerce. The whole
+energy and interest of a busy population seem concentrated at Cherbourg,
+either in constructing works of defence or engines of destruction.
+
+The rather slovenly-looking orderly that we have sketched--sauntering up
+and down upon the ramparts, and sniffing the fresh breezes that come to
+him with a booming sound from the rocks of Querqueville that guard the
+west side of the bay--is justly proud of the efficiency and completeness
+which everywhere surround him, and with a twinkle in his eye, asks if
+'Monsieur' has visited the arsenals, or has ever seen a naval review at
+Cherbourg. The pride and boast even of the boys that play upon these
+heights (boys with '_La Gloire_' upon their hats, and dressed in a naval
+costume rather different from our notions of sailors), is that
+'Cherbourg is impregnable and France invincible,' and, if we stay here
+long, we shall begin to believe both the one and the other.
+
+[Illustration: A SKETCH AT CHERBOURG.]
+
+There is a little difficulty, not insurmountable to an Englishman, with
+the assistance of his consul, in obtaining permission to visit the
+government works in progress, and now fast approaching completion; for
+the Government is courteous, if cautious, in this matter. The French
+people cannot help being polite; there is an English yacht riding in the
+harbour this morning, and the ladies, who have just come ashore, have
+every politeness and attention shewn to them; and the little yacht will
+refit, as so many do here in the summer, and take refuge again and again
+in this roadstead, with great convenience and many pleasant
+recollections of their reception.
+
+If we had been upon these heights in the summer of 1858, and later in
+1865, we might have seen the combined fleets of England and France in
+the roadstead; and, in the spring of 1865, with a good telescope, we
+might have witnessed a miniature naval engagement between the famous
+_Alabama_ and the _Kearsage_, which took place a few miles from the
+shore.
+
+The _Port Militaire_ and the _Arsenal de Marine_ at Cherbourg (which are
+said to be five times as large as Portsmouth), and its basins, in which
+a hundred sail of the line can be accommodated at one time, are sights
+which we scarcely realize in description, but which almost overwhelm us
+with their magnitude and importance, when seen from this vantage ground.
+
+In three hours after leaving Cherbourg we may find ourselves settled in
+the little old-fashioned inn, called the _Hotel du Soleil Levant_, at
+ST. LO, which we shall probably have entirely to ourselves.
+
+St. Lo, although the _chef-lieu_ of the department of La Manche, appears
+to the traveller a quiet, second-rate manufacturing town, well-situated
+and picturesquely built, but possessing no particular objects of
+interest excepting the cathedral; although visitors who have spent any
+time in this neighbourhood find it rich in antiquities, and a good
+centre from which to visit various places in the environs. In no part of
+this beautiful province do we see the country to better advantage, and
+nowhere than in the suburbs of St. Lo, shall we find better examples of
+buildings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
+
+But St. Lo is dull, and there is a gloom about it that communicates
+itself insensibly to the mind; that finds expression in the worship of
+graven images by little children, and in the burning of innumerable
+candles in the churches. There is an air of untidiness and neglect
+about the town that no trim military regulations can alter, and a repose
+that no amount of chattering of the old women, or even the rattle of
+regimental drums, seems able to disturb. They do strange things at St.
+Lo in their quiet, dull way; they paint the names of their streets on
+the cathedral walls, and they make a post-office of one of its
+buttresses; they paste the trees all over with advertisements in the
+principal squares, and erect images of the Virgin on their warehouses.
+The master at our hotel calls to a neighbour across the street to come
+and join us at table, and the people at the shops stand outside,
+listlessly contemplating their own wares. There are at least 10,000
+inhabitants, but we see scarcely anyone; a carriage, or a cart, startles
+us with its unusual sound, and every footstep echoes on the rough
+pavement. The arrival of the train from Paris; the commercial travellers
+that it brings, and the red liveries of the government grooms, leading
+out their horses, impart the only appearance of life to the town.
+
+Nowhere in France does the military element seem more out of place,
+never did 'fine soldiers' seem so much in the way as at St. Lo. There is
+a parade to-day, there was a parade yesterday, and to-morrow (Sunday)
+there will be a military mass for a regiment leaving on foreign duty. It
+is all very right, no doubt, and necessary for the peace of Europe, the
+'balance of power,' the consumption of pipe-clay, and the breaking of
+hearts sometimes; but, in contrast to the natural quiet of this place,
+the dust and noise are tremendous, and the national air (so gaily played
+as the troops march through the town) has, as it seems to us, an
+uncertain tone, and does not catch the sympathy of the bystanders. They
+stand gazing upon the pageant like the Venetians listening to the
+Austrian band--they are a peace-loving community at St. Lo.
+
+But let us look well at the cathedral, at the grandeur of its spires,
+at its towers with open galleries, at the rich 'flamboyant' decoration
+of the doorways; at its monuments, chapels, and stained glass, and above
+all at the _exterior_ pulpit, abutting on the street at the north-east
+end, which is one of the few remaining in France.
+
+[Illustration: Exterior Pulpit at St Lo.[23]]
+
+If we ascend one of the towers, we shall be rewarded with a view over a
+varied and undulating landscape, stretching far away westward towards
+the sea, and southward towards Avranches and Vire; whilst here and
+there we may distinguish, dotted amongst the trees, those curious
+chateaux of the _ancienne noblesse_, which are disappearing rapidly in
+other parts of France; and the view of the town and cathedral together,
+as seen from the opposite hill, with the river winding through the
+meadows, and the women washing, on their knees on the bank, is also very
+picturesque.
+
+We do not, however, make a long stay at St. Lo, for we are within
+sixteen miles of the city of COUTANCES, with its narrow and
+curiously modern-looking streets, its ecclesiastical associations, and
+its magnificent cathedral. As we approach it, by the road, we see before
+us a group of noble Gothic spires, and are prepared to meet (as we do in
+nearly every street) ecclesiastics and priests, and to find the
+'Catholic Church' holding its head high in this remote part of France.
+
+Everything gives way to the Cathedral in point of interest and
+importance. It is considered 'one of the most complete and beautiful in
+France, free from exuberant ornament, and captivating the eye by the
+elegance of proportion and arrangement. Its plan possesses several
+peculiar features, comprising a nave with two west towers, side aisles,
+and chapels, filling up what would in other cathedrals be intervals
+between buttresses; north and south transepts, with an octagonal tower
+at their intersection; a choir with a polygonal apse, double aisles,
+with radiating chapels, and a Lady chapel at the east end. The nave,
+which is 100 feet high, consists of six bays, with triforium and lofty
+clerestory. The effect is exceedingly grand, and is enhanced by the
+lateral chapels seeming to constitute a second aisle all round. The
+whole of this part of the building is worthy of the closest
+examination. The interior of the large chapel of the south transept is
+very curious, circular at both ends. The choir has three bays in its
+rectangle, and five bays in its apse, the latter being separated by
+coupled piers outside each other (not touching), of wonderful lightness
+and beauty. The double aisle of the choir has a central range of single
+columns running all round it, and the effect of the intersection of so
+many shafts, columns, and vaultings is perfectly marvellous. There is no
+triforium in the choir, but only a pierced parapet under the clerestory
+windows, which are filled with fine early glass. There is much good
+glass, indeed, throughout the cathedral, and several interesting tombs.'
+
+We quote this description in detail because the cathedral at Coutances
+is a rare gem, and possesses so many points of interest to the architect
+and antiquary.
+
+The history of Coutances is like a history of the Roman Catholic Church,
+and the relics of bishops and saints meet us at every turn. As early as
+the third century there are records of its conversion to Christianity;
+it has passed through every vicissitude of war, pillage, and revolution,
+until in these latter days it has earned the guide-book appellation of
+'a semi-clerical, semi-manufacturing, quiet, clean, agreeable town.'
+There are about 9000 inhabitants, including a few English families,
+attracted here by its reputation for salubrity and cheapness of living.
+
+The beauty of the situation of Coutances can scarcely be exaggerated;
+built upon the sides of a lofty hill commanding views over a vast extent
+of country, it is approached on both sides up steep hills, by broad
+smooth roads with avenues of trees and surrounding gardens, and is
+surmounted by its magnificent old cathedral, which is the last important
+building of the kind, that we shall see, until we reach Rouen; and one
+the traveller is never likely to forget, especially if he ascend the
+tower, as we did, one morning whilst service was being performed
+below.[24]
+
+It was our last morning at Coutances, the air was still and clear, and
+the panorama was superb; on every side of us were beautiful hills, rich
+with orchards laden with fruit, and fields of corn; and beyond them, far
+away westward, the sea and coast line, and the channel islands with
+their dangerous shores. The air was calm, and dreamy, but in the
+distance we could see white lines of foam--the 'wild horses' of the
+Atlantic in full career; beneath our feet was the open 'lantern dome,'
+and the sound of voices came distinctly up the fluted columns; we could
+hear the great organ under the western towers, the voices of the
+congregation in the nave, and the chanting of the priests before the
+altar,--
+
+  'Casting down their golden crowns, beside the glassy sea.'
+
+The town of GRANVILLE, built on a rock by the sea, with its dark granite
+houses, its harbour and fishing-boats, presents a scene of bustle and
+activity in great contrast to Coutances and St. Lo. There is an upper
+and lower town--a town on the rocks, with its old church with five gilt
+statues, built almost out at sea--and another town, on the shore. The
+streets of the old town are narrow and badly paved; but there is great
+commercial activity, and a general sign of prosperity amongst its
+sea-faring population. The approach to the sea (on one side of the
+promontory, on which the town is built) is very striking; we emerge
+suddenly through a fissure in the cliffs on to the sea-shore, into the
+very heart and life of the place--into the midst of a bustling community
+of fishermen and women. There is fish everywhere, both in the sea and on
+the land, and the flavour of it is in the air; there are baskets, bales,
+and nets, and there is, it must be added, a familiar ring of
+Billingsgate in the loud voices that we hear around us. Granville is
+the great western sea port of France, from which Paris is constantly
+supplied; and, in spite of the deficiency of railway communication, it
+keeps up constant trade with the capital--a trade which is not an
+unmixed benefit to its inhabitants; for in the '_Messager de Granville_'
+of August, 1869, we read that:--
+
+
+  'L'extreme chaleur de la temperature n'empeche pas nos marchands
+  d'expedier a Paris des quantites considerables de poisson, _au
+  moment meme ou il est hors de prix sur notre marche_. Nous ne
+  comprenons rien a de semblables speculations, dont l'un des plus
+  facheux resultats est d'ajouter--une _affreuse odeur_ aux desagrements
+  de nos voitures publiques!'
+
+
+All through the fruitful land that we have passed, we cannot help being
+struck with the evident inadequate means of transport for goods and
+provisions; at Coutances, for instance, and at Granville (the great
+centre of the oyster fisheries of the west) they have only just thought
+about railways, and we may see long lines of carts and waggons, laden
+with perishable commodities, being carried no faster than in the days
+of the first Napoleon.
+
+But we, who are in search of the picturesque should be the very last to
+lament the fact, and we may even join in the sentiment of the Maire of
+Granville, and be 'thankful' that the great highways of France are under
+the control of a careful Government; and that her valleys are not (as in
+England) strewn with the wrecks of abandoned railways--ruins which, by
+some strange fatality, never look picturesque.
+
+Granville is a favourite place of residence, and a great resort for
+bathing in the summer; although the 'Etablissement' is second-rate, and
+the accommodation is not equal to that of many smaller watering-places
+of France. It is, however, a pleasant and favourable spot in which to
+study the manners and customs of a sea-faring people: and besides the
+active human creatures which surround us, we--who settle down for a
+season, and spend our time on the sands and on the dark rocks which
+guard this iron-bound coast--soon become conscious of the presence of
+another vast, active, striving, but more silent community on the
+sea-shore, digging and delving, sporting and swimming, preying upon
+themselves and each other, and enjoying intensely the luxury of living.
+
+If we, _nous autres_, who dwell upon the land and prey upon each other
+according to our opportunities, will go down to the shore when the tide
+is out, and ramble about in the--
+
+  'Rosy gardens revealed by low tides,'
+
+we may make acquaintance with a vast Lilliput community; we may learn
+some surprising lessons in natural history, and read sermons in shells.
+But, amidst this most interesting and curious congregation of fishes--a
+concourse of crabs, lobsters, eels in holes, limpets on the rocks, and a
+hundred other inhabitants of the sea, in every form of activity around
+us--we must not forget, in our enthusiasm for these things, the
+treacherous tides on this coast, and the great Atlantic waves, that
+will suddenly overwhelm the flat shore, and cut off retreat from those
+who are fishing on the rocks.
+
+This happens so often, and is so full of danger to those unacquainted
+with the coast, that we may do good service by relating again, an
+adventure which happened to the late Campbell of Islay and a friend, who
+were nearly drowned near Granville. They had been absorbed in examining
+the rocks at some distance from the shore, and in collecting the
+numerous marine plants which abound in their crevices; when suddenly one
+of the party called out--
+
+'Mercy on us! I forgot the tide, and here it comes.'
+
+Turning towards the sea they saw a stream of water running at a rapid
+pace across the sands. They quickly began to descend the rocks, but
+before they could reach the ground 'the sand was in stripes, and the
+water in sheets.' They then ran for the shore, but before they had
+proceeded far, they were met by one of the fisher-girls, who had seen
+their danger from the shore, and hastened to turn them back, calling to
+them--
+
+'The wave! the wave! it is coming--turn! turn and run--or we are lost!'
+
+They did turn, and saw far out to sea a large wave rolling toward the
+shore. The girl passed them and led the way; the two friends strained
+every nerve to keep pace with her, for as they neared the rock, the wave
+still rolled towards them; the sand became gradually covered, and for
+the last ten steps they were up to their knees in water--but they were
+on the rock.
+
+'Quick! quick!' said the girl; '_there_ is the passage to the Cross at
+the top; but if the second wave comes we shall be too late.'
+
+She scrambled on for a hundred yards till she came to a crack in the
+rock, six or seven feet wide, along which the water was rushing like a
+mill-sluice. With some difficulty they reached the upper rocks,
+carrying the fisher-girl in their arms, and wading above their knees in
+water. Here they rest a moment--when a great wave rolls in, and the
+water runs along the little platform where they are sitting; they all
+rise, and mounting the rocky points (which the little Granvillaise
+assures them are never quite covered with water), cluster together for
+support. In a few moments the suspense is over, the girl points to the
+shore, where they can hear the distant sound of a cheer, and see people
+waving their handkerchiefs.
+
+'They think the tide has turned,' says the girl, 'and they are shouting
+to cheer us.'
+
+She was right, the tide had turned. Another wave came and wetted their
+feet, but when it had passed the water had fallen, and in five minutes
+the platform was again dry!
+
+The fisherwomen of Granville are famed for their beauty, industry, and
+courage; we, certainly, have not seen such eyes, excepting at Cadiz,
+and never have we seen so many active hard-working old women. The women
+seem to do everything here--the 'boatmen' are women, and the fishermen
+young girls.
+
+We may well admire some of these handsome Granvillaises, living their
+free life by the sea, earning less in the day, generally, than our
+Staffordshire pit girls, but living much more enviable lives. Here they
+are by hundreds, scattered over the beach in the early morning, and
+afterwards crowding into the market-place; driving hard bargains for the
+produce of their sea-farms, and--with rather shrill and unpronounceable
+ejaculations and many most winning smiles--handing over their shining
+wares. It is all for the Paris market they will tell you, and they may
+also tell you (if you win their confidence) that they, too, are one day
+for Paris.
+
+Let us leave the old women to do the best bargaining, and picture to the
+reader a bright figure that we once saw upon this shining shore, a
+Norman maiden, about eighteen years of age, without shoes or stockings;
+a picture of health and beauty bronzed by the sun.[25] This young
+creature who had spent her life by the sea and amongst her own people,
+was literally overflowing with happiness, she could not contain the half
+of it, she imparted it to everyone about her (unconsciously, and that
+was its sweetness); she could not strictly be called handsome, and she
+might be considered very ignorant; but she bloomed with freshness, she
+knew neither ill health nor _ennui_, and happiness was a part of her
+nature.
+
+This charming 'aphrodite piscatrix' is stalwart and strong (she can swim
+a mile with ease), she has carried her basket and nets since sunrise,
+and now at eight o'clock on this summer's morning sits down on the
+rocks, makes a quick breakfast of potage, plumes herself a little, and
+commences knitting. She does not stay long on the beach, but before
+leaving, makes a slight acquaintance with the strangers, and evinces a
+curious desire to hear anything they may have to tell her about the
+great world.
+
+It is too bright a picture to last; she too, it would seem, has
+day-dreams of cities; she would give up her freedom, she would join the
+crowd and enter the 'great city,' she would have a stall at '_les
+halles_,' and see the world. Day-dreams, but too often fulfilled--the
+old story of centralization doing its work; look at the map of Normandy,
+and see how the 'chemin de fer de l'Ouest' is putting forth its arms,
+which--like the devil-fish, in Victor Hugo's '_Travailleurs de la
+Mer'_--will one day draw irresistibly to itself, our fair 'Toiler of the
+sea.'[26]
+
+'What does Monsieur think?' (for we are favoured with a little
+confidence from our young friend), and what can we say? Could we draw a
+tempting picture of life in cities--could we, if we had the heart, draw
+a favourable contrast between _her_ life, as we see it, and the lives of
+girls of her own age, who live in towns--who never see the breaking of a
+spring morning, or know the beauty of a summer's night? Could we picture
+to her (if we would) the gloom that shrouds the dwellings of many of her
+northern sisters; and could she but see the veil that hangs over London,
+in such streets as Harley, or Welbeck Street, on the brightest morning
+that ever dawned on their sleeping inhabitants, she might well be
+reconciled to her present life!
+
+[Illustration: A TOILER OF THE SEA.]
+
+'Is it nothing,' we are inclined to ask her, 'to feel the first rays of
+the sun at his rising, to be fanned with fresh breezes, to rejoice in
+the wind, to brave the storm; to have learned from childhood to welcome
+as familiar friends, the changes of the elements, and, in short, to have
+realised, in a natural life the 'mens sana in corpore sano'? Would she
+be willing to repeat the follies of her ancestors in the days of the
+_Trianon_ and Louis XIV.? Would she complete the fall which began when
+knights and nobles turned courtiers--and roues? Let us read history to
+her and remind her what centralization did for old France; let us
+whisper to her, whilst there is time, what Paris is like in our own day.
+
+Do we exaggerate the evils of over-centralization? We only at present,
+half know them; but the next generation may discover the full meaning
+of the word. There is exaggeration, no doubt; some men have lived so
+long in the country that they speak of towns as a 'seething mass of
+corruption,' pregnant of evil; and of villages as of an almost divine
+Arcadia, whence nothing but good can spring; but the evils of
+centralization can scarcely be overrated in any community. The social
+system even in France, cannot revolve for ever round one sun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_AVRANCHES--MONT ST. MICHAEL._
+
+There are some places in Europe which English people seem, with one
+consent, to have made their own; they take possession of them,
+peacefully enough it is true, but with a determination that the
+inhabitants find it impossible to resist. Thus it is that
+Avranches--owing principally, it may be, to its healthiness and
+cheapness of living, and to the extreme beauty of its situation--has
+become an English country town, with many of its peculiarities, and a
+few, it must be added, of its rather unenviable characteristics.
+
+The buildings at Avranches are not very remarkable. The cathedral has
+been destroyed, and the houses are of the familiar French pattern; some
+charmingly situated in pleasant gardens commanding the view over the
+bay. The situation seems perfect. Built upon the extreme western
+promontory of the long line of hills which extend from Domfront and the
+forest of Audaine, with a view unsurpassed in extent towards the sea,
+with environs of undulating hills and fruitful landscape; with woods and
+streams (such as the traveller who has only passed through central
+France could hardly imagine) we can scarcely picture to ourselves a more
+favoured spot.
+
+No district in Normandy (a resident assures us) affords a more agreeable
+resting place than the hills of Avranches, excepting, perhaps, the
+smiling environs of Mortain and Vire. Mortain is within easy distance,
+as well as Mont St. Michael (which we have sketched from the terrace at
+Avranches, at the beginning of this chapter), and Granville, also, on
+the western shore of the Norman archipelago; to the extreme south is
+seen the Bay of Cancale in Brittany, and the promontory of St. Malo; to
+the north, the variegated landscape of the Cotentin--hills, valleys,
+woods, villages, churches, and chateaux smiling in the sunshine,--the
+air melodious with the song of the lark and innumerable nightingales.'
+
+True as is this picture of the natural beauty of the position of
+Avranches, we will add one or two facts (gathered lately on the spot)
+which may be useful to intending emigrants from our shores. Within the
+last few years house rent, though still cheap, has greatly increased;
+and the prices of provisions, which used to be so abundant from
+Granville and St. Malo, have risen, as they have, indeed, all over
+France. The railway from Granville to Paris will only make matters
+worse, and the resident will soon see the butter, eggs, and fowls, which
+used to throng the market of Avranches, packed away in baskets for Paris
+and London. The salmon and trout in the rivers, are already netted and
+sold by the pound; and the larks sing no longer in the sky. Thus, like
+Dinan, Tours and Pau, Avranches feels the weight of centralisation and
+the effects of rapid communication with the capital; and will in a few
+years be anything but a cheap place of residence.
+
+However, from information gathered only yesterday, we learn that 'house
+rent bears favourable comparison with many English provincial towns;
+that servants' wages are not high, and that provisions are comparatively
+cheap;' also that the climate is 'very cold sometimes in winter, but
+more inclined to be damp; and that there is no good inn.'
+
+Again,--'if any quiet family demands fine air, a lovely position, cheap
+house-rent and servants, easy and cheerful society, regular church
+services, and, above all, first-class education for boys, and good
+governesses and masters for girls, it cannot do better than settle down
+here.'
+
+And again (from another point of view) that, 'after a year's residence
+in Normandy, I can see but little economy in it compared with England,
+and believe that sensible people would find far greater comfort, and but
+little more expense, if resident in Wales, Ireland, or some of the
+distant parts of our own country; if they would but make up their minds
+to live with as few servants, and to see as little society as is the
+custom abroad.'
+
+These varying opinions are worth having, coming as they do from
+residents, and giving us the latest information on the subject; but our
+friend whom we have quoted last seems to put the case most fairly, when
+he says, in so many words, 'English people had better live in their own
+country, if they can.'
+
+Life at Avranches is a strange contrast to Granville. In a few hours we
+pass from the contemplation of fishermen's lives to a curious kind of
+civilization--an exotic plant, which some might think was hardly worth
+the transplanting. A little colony of English people have taken
+possession of one of the finest and healthiest spots in Europe, and upon
+this vantage ground have deposited, or reproduced as in a magic mirror,
+much of the littleness and pettiness that is peculiar to an English
+country town: they have brought insular prejudices and peculiarities,
+and unpacked several of them at Avranches.
+
+Do we overdraw the picture? Hear one more resident, who thus tersely,
+and rather pathetically, puts his grievances to us, _viva voce_:--
+
+'We quiet English people,' he says, 'generally dine early, because it is
+considered economical--_which it is not!_
+
+'We live exclusively and stiffly, because it is considered proper and
+necessary--_which it is not!_
+
+'We go to the expense and trouble of bringing out our families, because
+living is supposed to be cheaper than in England--_which practically it
+is not!_
+
+'We believe that our children will be well educated, and pick up French
+for nothing--_which they do not!_'--&c, &c.
+
+An amusing book might be written about English society in French towns;
+no one indeed knows who has not tried it, with what little society-props
+such coteries as those at Avranches, Pau, &c., are kept up. It varies,
+of course, every year, and in each place every year; but when we were
+last at Avranches, 'society' was the watchword, we might almost say the
+war cry; and we had to declare our colours as if we lived in the days of
+the Wars of the Roses.
+
+The old inhabitants are, of course, 'rather particular,' and, to tell
+the truth, are sometimes rather afraid of each other. They are apt to
+eye with considerable caution any new arrival; the 'new arrival' is
+disposed to be equally select, and so they live together and apart,
+after the true English model; and indulging sometimes, it must be added,
+in considerable speculation about their new neighbours' business.
+
+  'Why were they proud--because red-lined accounts
+  Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?
+  Why were they proud--again we ask, aloud,
+  Why in the name of glory were they proud?'
+
+And so on; but what we might say of Avranches would apply to nearly
+every little English colony abroad. There are two sides to the picture,
+and there is a good, pleasant side to the English society at Avranches;
+there is also great necessity to be 'particular,' however much we may
+laugh. English people who come to reside abroad are not, as a rule, very
+good representatives of their nation; neither they nor their children
+seem to flourish on a foreign soil, they differ in their character as
+much as transplanted trees; they have more affinity with the poplars and
+elms of France than with the sturdy oaks of England.[27]
+
+Let us not be thought to disparage Avranches; if it is our lot to live
+here we may enjoy life well; and if we are not deterred by the dull and
+'weedy' aspect of some of the old chateaux, we may also make some
+pleasant friends amongst the French families in the neighbourhood.
+
+In summer time we may almost live out of doors, and ramble about in the
+fields and sketch, as we should do in England; the air is fresh and
+bracing, and the sea breeze comes gratefully on the west wind. We may
+stroll through shady lanes and between hedgerows, and we shall hear the
+familiar sound of bells, and see through the trees a church tower, such
+as the following (which is indeed the common type throughout Normandy);
+but here the similarity to England ceases, for we may enter the building
+at any hour, and find peasant women at prayers.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And we may see sometimes a party of English girls from a French school,
+with their drawing master; sketching from nature and making minute
+studies of the brandies of trees. They are seated on a hill-side, and
+there is a charming pastoral scene before them,--wood and water,
+pasture-land and cattle grazing,--women with white caps, and little
+white houses peeping through the trees.
+
+But the trees that they are studying are small and characterless
+compared with our own, they are scattered about the landscape, or set in
+trim lines along the roads: our fair artists had better be in England
+for this work. There is none of the mass and grandeur here that we see
+in our forest trees, none of the suggestive groups with which we are so
+familiar, even in the parks of London, planted 'by accident' (as we are
+apt to call it), but standing together with clear purpose of protection
+and support,--the strong-limbed facing the north and stretching out
+their protecting arms, the weaker towering above them in the centre of
+the square; whilst those to the south spread a deep shade almost to the
+ground. French trees are under an Imperial necessity to form into line;
+the groves at Fontainbleau are as straight as the Fifth Avenue at New
+York. There are no studies of trees in all Normandy like the royal oaks
+of Windsor, there is nothing to compare in grandeur with the stems of
+the Burnham beeches, set in a carpet of ferns; and nothing equal in
+effect to the massing of the blue pines--with their bronzed stems
+against an evening sky--in Woburn Park in Bedfordshire. We may bring
+some pretty studies from Avranches and from the country round, but we
+should not come to France to draw trees.
+
+But there are studies which we may make near Avranches, and of scenes
+that we shall not meet with in England. If we descend the hill and walk
+a few miles in the direction of Granville, we may see by the roadside
+the remnants of several wayside 'stations' of very early date. Let us
+sit down by the roadside to sketch one of these (A.D. 1066), and depict
+for the reader, almost with the accuracy of a photograph, its grotesque
+proportions. It stands on a bank, in a prominent position, by the
+roadside; a rude contrast to the surrounding scenery. Presently there
+comes up an old cantonnier in a blouse and heavy sabots, who has just
+returned from mending the roads; he takes off his cap, crosses himself
+devoutly, and kneels down to pray. The sun shines upon the cross and
+upon the kneeling figure; the soft wind plays about them, the bank is
+lovely with wild flowers; there are purple hills beyond, and a company
+of white clouds careering through space. But the old man sees nothing
+but the cross, he has no eyes for the beauty of landscape, no ear for
+the music of the birds or the voices of nature; he sees nothing but the
+image of his Saviour, he kneels as he knelt in childhood before the
+cross, he clasps his worn hands, and prays, with many repetitions,
+words which evidently bring comfort to his soul. In a few minutes the
+old man rises and puts on his cap, with a brass plate on it with the
+number of his canton, produces a little can of soup and bread and sits
+down on the bank to breakfast; ending by unrolling a morsel of tobacco
+from a crumpled paper, putting it into his mouth and going fast asleep.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Many more such scenes we could record, but they are more fitted for the
+pencil than the pen; the artist can easily fill his sketch-book without
+going far from Avranches.
+
+But as autumn advances our thoughts are naturally turned more towards
+'le sport;' and if we are fortunate enough to be on visiting terms with
+the owners of the neighbouring chateaux, we may be present at some
+interesting scenes that will remind us of pictures in the galleries at
+Versailles.
+
+'With good books, a good rod, and a double gun, one could never weary
+of a residence at Avranches,' says an enthusiastic settler who has found
+out the right corners in the trout-streams, and, possibly, the denizens
+of the neighbouring woods. The truth, however, is that in spite of the
+beautifully wooded country round, and the rivers that wind so
+picturesquely beneath us; in spite of its unexampled situation and its
+glorious view, Avranches is scarcely the spot for a sportsman to select
+for a residence.
+
+In the season there are numerous sportsmen, both English and French, and
+occasionally a very fair bag may be made; but game not being preserved
+systematically, the supply is variable, and accounts of sport naturally
+differ very widely. We can only say that it is poor work after our
+English covers, and that we know some residents at Avranches who prefer
+making excursions into Brittany for a week's shooting. Trout may be
+caught in tolerable abundance, and salmon of good weight are still to
+be found in the rivers, but they are diminishing fast, being, as we
+said, netted at night for the Paris market.[28]
+
+It was in the shooting season of the year, when game had been unusually
+scarce for the sportsman and provokingly plentiful to behold in the
+market-place at Granville--when the last accounts we had of the success
+of a party (who had been out for a week) was that they had bagged 'only
+a few woodcocks, three partridges, and a hare or two'--that the
+following clever sketch appeared in the newspapers. It was great fun,
+especially amongst some of our French friends who were very fond of the
+phrase 'chasse magnifique,' and resented the story as a terrible libel.
+
+An enthusiastic French marquis offered one of our countrymen, whom he
+met in Paris, a few days' shooting, in short, a 'chasse magnifique.' He
+accepted and went the next day; 'the journey was seven hours by railway,
+but to the true sportsman this was nothing.' The morning after his
+arrival he was attended by the marquis's keeper, who, in answer to X.'s
+enquiries, thus mapped out the day's sport:--
+
+     'Pour commencer, monsieur, nous chasserons dans les vignes de M. le
+     Marquis, ou a cette saison nous trouverons certainement des
+     grives (thrushes).' 'Et apres?' says X. 'Eh bien! apres, nous
+     passerons une petite heure sur la grande plaine, ou, sans doute,
+     nous trouverons une masse d'alouettes (larks). En suite je
+     montrerai a monsieur certaines poules d'eau (moorhens) que je
+     connais; fichtre! nous les attraperons. Il y a la-bas aussi, dans
+     le marais, un petit lac ou, l'annee passee, j'ai vu un canard, mais
+     un canard sauvage! Nous le chercherons; peut-etre il y sera.'
+
+     'But have you no partridges?' 'Des perdreaux! mais oui! je le crois
+     bien! (il demande si nous avons des perdreaux!) Il y en a, mais ils
+     sont difficiles. Nous en avions _quatre_, mais, le mois passe, M.
+     le Marquis en a tue un et serieusement blesse un second. La pauvre
+     bete n'est pas encore guerie. Cela ne nous laisse que deux. Nous
+     les chasserons sans doute si monsieur le veut; _mais que feronsnous
+     l'annee prochaine_? Si monsieur veut bien achever cette pauvre bete
+     blessee, ca peut s'arranger.'
+
+     'Well, but have you no covert shooting--no hares?'
+
+     'Les lievres? mais certainement, nous avons des lievres. Nous irons
+     dans la foret, je prendrai mes chiens, et je vous montrerai de
+     belles lievres. J'en ai trois--_Josephine, Alphonse_, et le vieux
+     _Adolphe_. Pour le moment Josephine est sacree--elle est mere. Le
+     petit Alphonse s'est marie avec elle, comme ca il est un peu pere
+     de famille; nous l'epargnerons, n'est-ce-pas, monsieur? Mais le
+     vieux Adolphe, nous le tuerons; c'est deja temps; voila cinq ans
+     que je le chasse!'
+
+
+_MONT ST. MICHAEL._
+
+From the terrace of the Jardin des Plantes, where we are never tired of
+the view (although some residents complain that it becomes monotonous,
+because they are too far from the sea to enjoy its variety), the grey
+mount of St. Michael is ever before us, gleaming in the sunshine or
+looming through the storm. In our little sketch we have given as
+accurately as possible its appearance from Avranches on a summer's day
+after rain;[29] but it should be seen when a storm passes over it, when
+the same clouds that we have watched so often on summer nights, casting
+deep shadows on the intervening plain--some silver-lined that may have
+expressed hope, some black as midnight that might mean despair--come
+over to us like messengers from the great rock, and take our little
+promontory by storm. They come silently one by one, and gather round and
+fold over us; then suddenly clap their hands and burst with such a
+deluge of rain that it seems a matter for wonder that any little
+creeping human things could survive the flood. And it does us good; we
+are thoroughly drenched, our houses and gardens do not recover their
+fair presence for weeks; our little prejudices and foibles are well
+nigh washed out of us, and we are reminded of the dread reality of the
+lives of our neighbours on the island, who form a much larger colony
+than ourselves.[30]
+
+'On no account omit a visit to Mont St. Michael,' say the guide-books,
+and accordingly we charter a carriage on a summer's morning and are
+driven in a few hours along a bad road, to the edge of the sands about a
+mile from the mount--the same sands that we saw depicted in the Bayeux
+tapestry, when William and Harold marched on Dinan. We choose a
+favourable time of the tide, and approach the gates at the foot of the
+mount dryshod.[31]
+
+For a thousand years pilgrims have crossed these treacherous sands to
+lay their offerings at the feet of the Archangel Michael; Norman dukes
+and monks of the middle ages have paid their devotion at his shrine, and
+troops of pilgrims in all ages, even to this day, when a party of
+English school-girls come tripping across the bay, provided with a
+passport and a fee, bent upon having the terrors of the prison-house
+shewn to them as easily as the 'chamber of horrors' at Madame Tussaud's.
+
+Before us, as we walk the last mile, the granite rock gradually becomes
+a mountain surrounded by a wide plain of sand, covered with clustering
+houses, towers, turrets, and fortifications, and surmounted by a Gothic
+church nearly 400 feet above the sea. There is a little town upon the
+rock, old, tumble-down, irregular, and picturesque, like Bastia in
+Corsica--constructed by a hardy sea-faring people, who have built their
+dwellings in the sides of this conical rock, like the sea-birds; and
+there is a little inn called the _Lion d'or_, with windows built out
+over the ramparts, from which we can see the shore.
+
+On arriving at the island we pass under two ancient towers, and into
+'the court of the Lion;' then to a third gate, with its towers and
+battlements, and frowning portcullis; and we see, as we pass, the lion
+(the insignia of the knights of Mont St. Michael) carved in stone, and
+set into the wall. We are received in the ancient guard-room by a 'young
+brother,' who has (shall it be repeated?) 'turned the guard-room into a
+cheerful bazaar for the sale of photographs, ivory carvings and the
+like.' We are on the threshold of the sanctuary, at the end of our
+pilgrimage; we offer up no prayers, as of old, for safe deliverance from
+peril, but we set to work at once, and 'invest in a pocketful of little
+presents, which another brother (on business thoughts intent) packs for
+us neatly in a pasteboard box.' We are shewn the apartments in the 'Tour
+des Corbins,' with its grand staircase, called 'l'escalier des exils,'
+and the crypt one hundred feet long, built by the monks in the eleventh
+century; we see the great Gothic hall of the Knights of Mont St.
+Michael, with its carved stone-work and lofty roof, supported by three
+rows of pillars, beautiful in proportion, and grand in effect, although
+the Revolution, as usual, has left us little but the bare walls; but, as
+we look down upon it from a gallery, it is easy to picture the splendour
+of a banquet of knights in the twelfth century, with the banners and
+insignia of chivalry ranged upon the walls.[32] But it is now a silent
+gloomy chamber, and the atmosphere is so close and the moral atmosphere
+so heavy withal, that we are glad to leave it, and to ascend to another
+story of this wonderful pile; through the beautiful Gothic cloisters,
+and out upon the cathedral roof, where we suddenly emerge upon a view
+more wonderful in its extent and flatness than anything, save that from
+the cathedral tower of Chartres; before us an horizon of sea, behind us
+the coast line, and the hills of Avranches; all around, a wide plain of
+sand, and northward, in the far distance, the low dark lines of the
+channel islands.
+
+That 'Saint Michael's Mount has become a popular lion, and can only be
+seen under the vexatious companionship of a guide and a party' is true
+enough; nevertheless, we can stay at the inn on the island, and thus be
+enabled to examine and make drawings of some of the most beautiful
+thirteenth-century work in the cloisters that we shall meet with in
+Normandy. These cloisters and open arcades (supported by upwards of two
+hundred slender pillars) are carved and decorated with grotesque and
+delicate ornament, the capitals to the pillars are richly foliated, and
+the fringe that surrounds them has been well described as a 'wilderness
+of vines and roses, and dragons, winged and crowned.'
+
+Like the churches in Normandy, the architecture of these monastic
+buildings is in nearly every style, from the simple romanesque of the
+eleventh century to the rich _flamboyant_ of the fifteenth; and, like
+many of the churches, its history dates from the time when the Druids
+took possession of the island to the days when the storm of the
+Revolution broke upon its shores.
+
+The ordinary time for visiting the rock is when the tide is out, but we
+have not seen Mont St. Michael to advantage until it is completely
+surrounded by water, as it is during the spring tides; it is then that,
+approached from the west, we may see it half-obscured by sea-foam, with
+its turrets shining through the clouds, and the heavy Atlantic waves
+booming against its foundations.
+
+The little fishing population of Mont St. Michael, and the stories they
+tell of the dangers of the quicksands, will while away the time in the
+evening and reward us for staying; and we shall see such an exhibition
+of hopeless _ennui_ on the part of the French officers in garrison as
+will not soon be forgotten.
+
+It would require a separate work to describe in detail all the buildings
+on the rock;[33] (it takes a day to examine the fortifications and
+dungeons alone); we have therefore only attempted to give the reader an
+idea of its general aspect; of what M. Nodier, in his '_Annales
+Romantiques_,' describes as 'l'effet poetique et religieux de la fleche
+du Mont St. Michael;' and indeed we have hardly dared to picture to
+ourselves the complete magnificence of the basilica of the Archangel, as
+mariners who approached these shores must have seen it three hundred
+years ago, with its lofty towers of sculptured stone; and the image of
+its patron saint, turning towards the western sun a fiery cross of
+gold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+_MORTAIN--VIRE--FALAISE._
+
+
+We now turn our faces towards the east, and starting again from
+Avranches on our homeward journey, go very leisurely by diligence,
+through Mortain and Vire to Falaise.
+
+The distance from Avranches to Mortain is not more than twenty miles,
+and takes nearly five hours; but the country is so beautiful, and the
+air is so fresh and bracing, that a seat in the banquette of the
+diligence is one of the most enviable in life. The roof is over-loaded
+with goods and passengers, which gives a pleasant swaying motion to the
+vehicle; but the road is so smooth and even that 'nobody cares'--the
+rocking to and fro is soothing, and sends the driver to sleep, the
+pieces of string that keep the harness together will hold for another
+hour or two, and the crazy machine will last our journey at least.
+
+We halt continually on the journey--once, for half-an-hour, literally
+'under the lindens'--they are not yet in bloom, but they give out a
+pleasant perfume into the dreamy air; we are again in the open country,
+in the atmosphere of old historic Normandy, and bound, slowly it is
+true, for the birthplace of William the Conqueror; and we can read or
+sleep at pleasure, as our crazy diligence crawls up and creeps down
+every hill, and stops at every cottage by the way.
+
+On this beautiful winding road, which is carried along and between, the
+ridge of hills on which Avranches stands, and commands views westward
+over the bay to Mont St. Michael and eastward towards Alencon and the
+plains of Orne, we only meet one or two solitary pedestrians. We are
+nearly as much alone as in a Swiss pass; the scenery might be part of
+the Tete Noire, and the _Hotel de la Poste_, at Mortain, which is built
+on the side of a hill over a ravine, and at which our diligence makes a
+dead stop, might, for many reasons, be a posada on the Italian Alps.
+
+If we stroll out at once, before the evening closes, we shall have time
+to visit the cemetery on the rocks, to see the remains of a castle of
+the Norman dukes, and above all, the superb panorama from the heights;
+and we may wander afterwards into the valleys to see the cascades, the
+ivy-covered rocks, and the masses of ferns; scenes so exquisite and
+varied that we are lost in wonder that all these things are to be seen
+in France at small trouble and cost, and that French artists have
+hardly ever told us of them.[34]
+
+That 'the country round Mortain is not known as well as it deserves,' is
+a remark that cannot be too often repeated; we cannot, indeed, imagine a
+more delightful district for an English artist in which to spend a
+summer, and we promise him that he shall find subjects that will look as
+well on the walls of the Academy as the Welsh hills, or the valleys of
+Switzerland.
+
+We are at a loss to express in words the romantic beauty of the
+situation of Mortain, where we may pitch our tent, and make studies of
+rocks, which will tell us more in practice, than written volumes about
+these wondrous geological formations; and the clusters of ivy in the
+niches, the moss and lichen, the rich colour of the boulders, the trees
+in the valleys below us, the clear sky, and the sweet air that comes
+across the bay, make us linger here for the beauty of the scene alone;
+regardless almost of the ancient history of Mortain, of the story of its
+Pagan temples, of its thirteenth-century church, and almost unmindful of
+the 'Abbaye de Savigny,' eight miles off, a building which is worthy of
+a special visit.
+
+And we come away, perforce, in the evening-time from all this lovely
+landscape, from the pure air, from the cascades, the rocks, and the
+ferns, from everything agreeable to the senses, to the most literal,
+shameful, wallowing in the mire. We have spoken, so far, only of the
+scene; let add a word in very truth, about 'man and his dwelling-place.'
+How shall we describe it? We are at the _Hotel de la Poste_, and we are
+housed like pigs; we (some of us) eat like them, and live even as the
+lower animals. We--'_Messieurs et Mesdames_,' lords and ladies of the
+creation--hide our heads in a kennel; our dirty rooms 'give' on to the
+odorous court-yard; we turn our backs upon the valley which the building
+almost overhangs; we can neither breathe pure air nor see the bright
+landscape. Any details of the domestic arrangements and surroundings of
+the _Hotel de la Poste_ at Mortain would be unfit for these pages;
+suffice it that, we are in one of the second-rate old-fashioned inns of
+France, the style of which our travelled forefathers may well
+remember.[35]
+
+We have more than once been censured for saying that the French people
+have little natural love for scenery, and a stilted, not to say morbid,
+theory of landscape; but whilst we stay in this inn, from which we might
+have had such splendid views, we become confirmed in the opinion
+(formed in the Pyrenees), that the French people _do not care_, and that
+they think nothing of defiling Nature's purest places. At this hotel we
+are in the position of the prisoners confined aloft in the tower at
+Florence; the hills and valleys are before and around us, but we are not
+allowed to see them.[36]
+
+On our road to VIRE, twenty-three miles distant, it is tempting
+to make a digression to the town of Domfront (which the reader will see
+on the map, a few miles to the south-east); we should do so, to see its
+picturesque position, with the ancient castle on the heights, and the
+town, as at Falaise, growing round its feet; also an old church at the
+foot of the hill, which is considered 'one of the best and purest
+specimens of Norman work to be found anywhere.'
+
+But the route we have chosen for description, now turns northward,
+passing through a still beautiful land, studded with thatched cottages,
+and lighted up with the dazzling white helmets of the women who are busy
+in the fields, and in the farms and homesteads. As we approach the town
+of Vire, the population has evidently been absorbed into the cloth and
+paper mills, for, excepting in the morning and the evening, there are
+very few people abroad; we see scarcely any one, save, at regular
+intervals on the road, the old cantonniers occupied in their business of
+making stone-pies,[37] or a village cure at work in his garden; but we
+notice that the houses are neater and better built than those near
+Mortain, where grass grows luxuriantly upon them, and the roofs are
+covered with coloured mosses.
+
+The situation of Vire is one of extreme beauty (reminding us again of
+Switzerland), with hills and valleys richly wooded, the trees being
+larger than any we have yet seen on our route. If we had approached Vire
+from the west, by way of Villedieu and St. Sever, we should have had
+even finer views than by way of Mortain; but Villedieu is at present
+more deplorable than Mortain in its domestic arrangements, and the inn
+is to be avoided by all cleanly people; however, with the completion of
+the railway from Vire to Granville, we are promised much better things.
+
+[Illustration: CLOCK TOWER AT VIRE.]
+
+The chief architectural object of interest at Vire is the old
+clock-tower of the thirteenth century, over the Rue de Calvados, with
+its high gateway, formerly called 'the gate of the Champ de Vire.'
+Over this gateway (which we cannot see from the position where we have
+sketched the belfry) there is a statue of the Virgin, with the
+inscription, '_Marie protege la ville_.' This tower has been altered and
+repaired at several periods, and, like two others near it, is too much
+built up against and crowded by, what the French call '_maisons
+vulgaires_,' to be well seen.
+
+We have not spoken of the castle first, because there is little of it
+left besides the keep; and the part that remains seems no longer old.
+The bold promontory on which it stood is now neatly kept and 'tidied'
+with smooth slopes, straight walks, and double rows of trees, pleasant
+to walk upon, but more suggestive of the Bois de Boulogne than the
+approach to a ruin.
+
+It is from this promontory, or rather from what Murray calls 'this dusty
+pleasure ground,' that we obtain our best view of the country westward,
+towards Avranches; and from whence we can see the bold granite
+formation of the rocks in the neighbourhood. We may see where the
+manufacturers of cloth and paper have established their mills; and also
+where, in some cases, they have had to widen out the valleys, and to cut
+roads through the rocks to their works. All the streams turn
+waterwheels, and many of the surrounding rocks are disfigured with cloth
+'tenters.'
+
+There are some curious half-timbered houses at Vire, and some old
+streets tempting to sketch; including the house of Basselin, the famous
+originator of 'vaux de Vire'--or, as they are now called, _vaudevilles_.
+
+The inhabitants number about 9000, they are for the most part engaged in
+the manufactories of the place, too busy apparently to modernise either
+their costume or their dwellings; but the railway is now bringing others
+to the town who will work these changes for them. Happily for them and
+for us, the hills are of granite and their sides most precipitous, and
+the innovators make slow progress in modernisation. At the hotels
+everyone drinks cider, rather than _vin ordinaire_; and at night we are
+awoke with the clatter of sabots and the voice of the watchman.
+
+The ancient town of FALAISE, to which so many Englishmen make a
+pilgrimage, as being the reputed birthplace of William the Conqueror,
+can now be reached, either from Caen, Vire, or Paris, by railway; but we
+who come from the west, will do well to keep to the old road; and (if we
+wish to preserve within us any of the associations connected with the
+place) should not have the sound of '_Falaise_' first rung in our ears
+by railway porters. Both the town and castle of Falaise are situated on
+high ground; and the latter, being on the side of a precipitous
+eminence, may be seen for a long distance before we approach it by the
+road. At Falaise, as at Lisieux, the traveller who arrives in the town
+by railway, is generally surprised and disappointed, at first sight,
+with its modern aspect.
+
+'The castle of Falaise,' says M. Leduc, 'consists of a large square
+Norman keep of the tenth and eleventh centuries, standing at the
+steepest and highest part of a rocky eminence, with a lofty and
+exceedingly fine _circular_ tower, connected with it on the south-west
+by a passage; and round the whole, a long irregular line of outer wall
+following the sinuosities of the hill, fortified by circular towers and
+enclosing various detached buildings used by the garrison. This line of
+outer wall and the circular tower is of much later date than the keep,
+and the greater portion of them is not older than the fourteenth or
+fifteenth century, when the castle had to withstand attacks from the
+English. In the keep (it is said) William the Conqueror was born, and
+they pretend to show the remains of the very room where this event took
+place, as well as the identical window from which his father "Duke
+Robert the Magnificent," first saw Arlette, the daughter of the Falaise
+tanner.'
+
+Here, under the shadow of 'Talbot's tower,' we might prefer to muse
+historically, and gather up our memories of facts connected with the
+place; but we are treading again upon 'the footsteps of the Conqueror,'
+and must pay for our indiscretion. From the moment we approach the
+precincts of the castle, we are pounced upon by the inevitable spider
+(in this instance, in the shape of a very rough and ignorant custodian)
+who is in hiding to receive his prey. Before we have time for
+remonstrance, we have paid our money, we have ascended the smooth round
+tower (one hundred feet high, with walls fifteen feet thick) by a
+winding staircase, we have been taken out on to the modern zinc-covered
+roof, and shown the view therefrom; and the spots where the various
+sieges and battles took place, including the breach made by Henry IV.
+after seven days' cannonade, a breach that two or three shots from an
+Armstrong gun would have effected in these days.
+
+We are shewn, of course, 'the room where William the Conqueror was
+born,' and from the windows of the castle keep we have just time to make
+a sketch of the beautiful Val d'Ante,[38] and of the women, with their
+curiously-shaped baskets, washing in the stream; and to listen to the
+thrice-told tale of the tanner's daughter, and to the deeds of valour
+wrought on these heights--when the performance is declared to be over,
+and we find ourselves once more on the ramparts outside the castle.
+
+We are so full of historical associations at Falaise--every nook and
+corner of the castle telling of its nine sieges--that we are glad to be
+able to examine the building thoroughly from without, and to remind
+ourselves of the method of defensive warfare in the fifteenth century.
+The whole of the precincts of the castle, the walls, ramparts, and the
+principal towers, are (at the time we write, August, 1869) strewn with
+mason's work, as if a new castle of Falaise were being built; everything
+looks fresh and new, it is only here and there we discover anything old,
+the remnants of a carved window, and the like. But, as a Frenchman
+observed to us, if it had not been for all this nineteenth-century work,
+the present generation would never have seen the castle of Falaise. The
+work of restoration appears to be carried on in rather a different
+spirit from the ecclesiastical restorations at Caen and Bayeux; here the
+prevailing idea seems to be, 'prop up your antique _any how_' (with
+timber beams, and a zinc roof to Talbot's tower, such as we might put
+over a cistern), so long as devotees will come and worship, with
+francs, at the shrine; whilst at Bayeux, as we have seen, the old work
+is handled with reverence and fear, and the nineteenth-century mason
+puts out all his power to imitate, if not to excel, the work of the
+twelfth.
+
+The churches at Falaise should not pass unnoticed; but we will not weary
+the reader with any detailed description. Artists will especially
+delight in the view of a fourteenth-century church close to the castle,
+with its chancel with creepers growing over it, and peeping out between
+the stones; and historians will be interested in the laconic inscription
+on its walls, 'rebuilt in 1438, a year of war, death, plague, and
+famine.' If such artists as Brewer, or Burgess, would only come here and
+give us drawings of these streets (of one especially, taking in the
+cathedral at the end, with its stone walls built over by shops, as at
+Pont Audemer), they would be very interesting to Englishmen. Antiquaries
+will regret to learn that in the year 1869, the west end of a church is
+obliterated, as in the next illustration; that the shop of one 'M.
+Guille, peruquier,' reposes against the window, and that two other,
+quite modern, buildings lean against its walls. An old Norman arch is
+carved immediately above the window we have sketched, and completes the
+picture.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is, of course, not very easy to sketch undisturbed in the streets of
+Falaise; and both in the churches and in the castle the showman is
+perpetually treading on the traveller's heels. Everywhere we turn, in
+the neighbourhood of the castle, we are reminded of historic deeds of
+valour, and of deadly fights in the middle ages; and every day that we
+remain in the town, we are reminded (by the crowds of farmers,
+horsedealers, and others, who are busy at the great fair held here twice
+a year) of our own, by comparison, very trifling business at Falaise. We
+are making a drawing of the great rocks near the castle, and of the
+valley below, every step of which is made famous by the memory of the
+Conqueror; when our studies are disturbed, not by tourists but by
+natives of the town; once by a farmer to see his good horses, which
+indeed he had, at the stables at the 'hotel of the beautiful Star,'
+where there were at least fifty standing for sale; and once, by a small
+boy, who carries a tray full of little yellow books called '_La Lanterne
+de Falaise_,' with a picture on the cover of the castle tower, and a
+huge lantern slung from the battlements! We purchase a copy, to get rid
+of the last intruder, and find it to be a '_Revue, satirique et
+humouristique_,' treating of divers matters, including '_faits atroces
+et chiens perdus_'!
+
+Now without being accused of misanthropy, we may remark that there are
+times and places when an Englishman would rather be 'let alone,' and
+that the precincts of Falaise are certainly of them. These century-wide
+contrasts and concussions, jar so terribly sometimes, that we are
+half-inclined to ask with M. de Tocqueville, whether we do not seem to
+be on the eve of a new Byzantine era, in which 'little men shall discuss
+and ape the deeds which great men did in their forefathers' days.'[39]
+The refrain in this nineteenth century is, 'still the showman, still the
+spectator,' until we become almost tired of the song. 'Here some noble
+act was achieved--there some valiant man perished.' Every nook and
+corner of the place tells the same story; until we are tempted to
+enquire 'What are _we_ doing (or are fit and capable of doing
+personally, on an emergency, in the matter of fighting,) to compare with
+the achievements of these Norman men of all ranks of life?'
+
+But not only in Normandy, it is the same wherever we go: as far as our
+own personal part in heroic actions is concerned, we live in an
+atmosphere of unreality; we read of great deeds rather than achieve
+them, we make shows of the works of our ancestors, we take pence
+(readily) over the graves of our kinsmen, and live, as it seems to us,
+rather unworthily, in the past.
+
+With our nineteenth-century inventions, we could, it is true, mow down
+these castle heights in half an hour, and we might well be proud of the
+achievement as a nation; but our warfare is at best but poor mercenary
+work, the heart of the nation--the life and courage of its people--are
+not in it.[40] We civilians, are too much protected, and most of us do
+not know how to fight. Like the Athenians, we are supposed to be
+cultivating the arts of peace, but, as we endeavoured to show at Caen,
+if judged by our monuments, we are making no great mark in our
+generation. Perhaps this is a question rather wide of our subject, but
+let us at least contend for one thing, viz.:--that if the mission of the
+present generation is not to wield battle-axes, but rather to fight
+social battles, say for the amelioration of the unhappy part of the
+population; and if it is our fortune to be protected the while, by a
+staff of policemen, and by strong laws against crime--that we should not
+neglect, at the same time, to cultivate and preserve the personal valour
+that is in us, by the use of arms. It may be that the day is shortly
+coming (our engineers predict that we shall soon have hand-to-hand
+fighting again), when every individual amongst us will have to put his
+courage to the proof; and if this should ever happen, it will certainly
+not diminish our interest in the construction and arrangement of these
+mediaeval castles, or in the battles that have been fought beneath their
+walls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+_ROUEN._
+
+
+At a corner of the market-place at Rouen, there stood, but a few years
+ago, one of the most picturesque houses in all Normandy, and with a
+story (if we are to believe the old chroniclers) as pathetic as any in
+history.
+
+It was from a door in this house that, in the year 1431, the unfortunate
+Joan of Arc was led out to be 'burned as a sorceress' before the people
+of Rouen. We need not dwell upon the story of the 'fair maid of
+Orleans,' which every child has by heart, but (mindful of our
+picturesque mission) we should like to carry the reader in imagination
+to the same spot just four hundred years later, when an English artist,
+heedless of the crowd that collects around him, sits down in the street
+to sketch the lines of the old building, already tottering to ruin.
+Faithfully and patiently does the artist draw the old gables, the unused
+doorway, the heavy awnings, the piles of wood, the market-women, and the
+grey perspective of the side street with its pointed roofs, curious
+archways and oil lantern swinging from house to house; and as faithfully
+(even to the mis-spelling of the word 'liquer,' on a board over the
+doorway) almost indeed, with the touch of the artist's pencil, has the
+engraver reproduced, by means of photography, the late Samuel Prout's
+drawing on the frontispiece of this volume.[41]
+
+Few artists have succeeded, as Prout succeeded, in giving the character
+of the old buildings in Normandy, and certainly no other drawings with
+which we are acquainted, admit of being photographed as his do, without
+losing effect. It is scarcely too much to say that in this engraving we
+can distinguish the different washes of colour, the greys and warmer
+tints, the broad touches of his pencil on the white caps of the women,
+and the very work of his hand in the bold, decisive shadows.
+
+It is pleasant to dwell for a moment on Prout's work, for he has become
+identified with Normandy through numerous sketches of buildings now
+pulled down; and they have an antiquarian as well as an artistic
+interest. They are 'mannered,' as we all know, but they have more
+_couleur locale_ than any of the drawings of Pugin; and are valued (we
+speak of money value) at the present time, above the works of most
+water-colour painters of his time.
+
+But we must not dream about old Rouen, we must rather tell the reader
+what it is like to-day, and how modern and prosaic is its aspect; how we
+arrive by express train, and are rattled through wide paved streets in
+an '_omnibus du Chemin de Fer_,' and are set down at a 'grand' hotel,
+where we find an Englishman seated in the doorway reading 'Bell's Life.'
+
+Rouen is busy and thriving, and has a fixed population of not less than
+150,000; situated about half-way between Paris and the port of Havre,
+there is a constant flow of traffic passing and repassing, and its quays
+are lined with goods for exportation. In front of our window at the
+Hotel d'Angleterre, from which we have a view for miles on both sides
+of the Seine, the noise and bustle are almost as great as at Lyons or
+Marseilles. The Rouen of to-day is given up to commerce, to the swinging
+of cranes, and to the screeching of locomotives on the quays; whilst the
+fine broad streets and lines of newly erected houses, shut out from our
+view the old city of which we have heard so much, and which many of us
+have come so far to see. As we approach Rouen by the river, or even by
+railway, it is true that we see cathedral towers, but they are
+interspersed with smoking factory chimneys and suspension bridges; and
+although on our first drive through the town, we pass the magnificent
+portal of the cathedral and the old clock-tower in the '_rue de la
+Grosse Horloge_,' we observe that the cathedral has a cast-iron spire,
+and that the frescoes and carving round the clock-tower are built up
+against and pasted over with bills of concerts and theatres.
+
+The streets are full of busy merchants, trim shopkeepers, and the usual
+crowd of blouses that we see in every city in France. There are wide
+boulevards and trees round Rouen; and if we look down upon the city from
+the heights of Mont St. Catherine (perhaps the best view that we can
+obtain anywhere) it may remind us, with its broad river laden with ships
+and its cathedral towers, of the superb view of Lyons that we obtain
+from the heights near the cemetery: the view so well known to visitors
+to that city. The people of Rouen who have spread out into the enormous
+suburb of St. Sever, on the left bank of the Seine,[42] are busy by
+thousands in the manufactories,--the sound of the loom and the anvil
+comes up to us even here; and down by the banks of the river, away
+westward, as far as the eye can see, up spring clean bright houses of
+the wealthy manufacturers and traders of Rouen,--rich, sleek, and portly
+gentlemen with the thinnest boots, who never even pass down the old
+streets if they can help it, but whom we shall find very pleasant and
+hospitable; and with whom we may sit down at a cafe under the trees and
+play at dominoes in the open street, in the middle of the day, without
+creating a scandal.
+
+But if Rouen will not compare with Lyons in size, or commercial
+importance, it surpasses it in antiquarian interest; and we have chosen
+our illustrations to depict it rather as it was, than as it is. We give
+a drawing of Joan of Arc's house rather than of a building in the 'rue
+Imperiale;' and a view of the old market-place in front of the cathedral
+rather than of the trim toy-garden at the west end of the church of St.
+Ouen; and we do this, not only because it is more picturesque, but
+because the modern aspect of Rouen is familiar to the majority of our
+readers.
+
+But we must examine the old buildings whilst there is time, for (as in
+other towns of Normandy) the work of demolition grows fast and furious;
+and the churches, the _Palais de Justice_, the courts of law, and the
+tower of the _Grosse Horloge_ will soon be all that is left to us. The
+narrow winding streets of gable-ended houses, with their strange
+histories, will soon be forgotten by all but the antiquary; for there is
+a ruthless law that no more half-timbered houses shall be built, and
+another that everything shall be in line.
+
+We are surrounded by old houses, but cannot easily find them, and when
+discovered they almost crumble at the touch--they fade away as if by
+magic; and there is a halo of mystery, we might almost say of sanctity,
+about them which is indescribable; it is as if the blossoms of an early
+age still clung to the old walls and garlanded with time-wreaths their
+tottering ruins.
+
+Rouen is disappearing like a dissolving view--a few more slides in the
+magic lantern, a few more windows of plate-glass, a few more '_grandes
+rues_' and the picture of old Rouen fades away.
+
+Let us hasten to the _Place de la Pucelle_, and examine the carving on
+the houses, and on the _Hotel Bourgtheroude_, before the great Parisian
+conjuror waves his wand once more. But, hey presto! down they come, in a
+street hard by--even whilst we write, a great panel totters to the
+ground--heraldic shields, with a border of flowers and pomegranates,
+carved in oak; clusters of grapes and diaper patterns of rich design,
+emblems of old nobility--all in the dust; a hatchment half defaced, a
+dragon with the gold still about his collar, a bit of an eagle's wing, a
+halberd snapped in twain--all piled together in a heap of ruin!
+
+A few weeks only, and we pass the place again--all is in order, the
+'improvement' has taken place; there is a pleasant wide _pave_, and a
+manufactory for '_eau gazeuse_.'
+
+The cathedral church of Notre Dame (the west front of which we have seen
+in the illustration), and the church of St. Ouen, the two most
+magnificent monuments in Rouen, are so familiar to most readers that we
+can say little that is new respecting them. When we have given a short
+description, taken from the best authorities on the subject, and have
+pointed out to artistic readers that this west front with its
+surrounding houses, and the view of the towers of St. Ouen from the
+garden, at the _east_ end, are two of the grandest architectural
+pictures to be found in Normandy, we shall have nearly accomplished our
+task.[43]
+
+[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF 'NOTRE DAME' AT ROUEN.
+
+"Like a piece of rockwork, rough and encrusted with images, and
+ornamented from top to bottom."]
+
+'The cathedral of Notre Dame occupies with its west front one side of a
+square, formerly a fruit and flower market. The vast proportions of this
+grand Gothic facade, its elaborate and profuse decorations, and its
+stone screens of open tracery, impress one at first with wonder and
+admiration, diminished however but not destroyed, by a closer
+examination; which shows a confusion of ornament and a certain
+corruption of taste.
+
+'The projecting central porch, and the whole of the upper part, is of
+the sixteenth century, the lateral ones being of an earlier period and
+chaster in style. Above the central door is carved the genealogy of
+Jesse; over the north-west door is the death of John the Baptist, with
+the daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod; and above them, figures
+of Virgin and Saints.
+
+'The north tower, called St. Romain (the one on the left in our
+illustration), is older in date, part of it being of the twelfth
+century; the right-hand tower, which is more florid, being of the
+sixteenth.' The central spire in the background is really of _cast
+iron_, and stands out, it is fair to say, much more sharply and
+painfully against the sky, than in our illustration.[44] We must not
+omit to mention the beautiful north door, called the 'Portail des
+Libraires,' which in Prout's time was completely blocked up with old
+houses and wooden erections.
+
+'On entering the doorway of the north porch (says _Cassell_), the
+visitor will be struck with the size, loftiness, and rich colour of the
+interior, 435 feet long and 89 feet high. The 'clerestory' of the
+sixteenth century is full of painted glass. On each side of the nave
+there is a series of chapels, constructed in the fourteenth century,
+between the buttresses of the main walls; they are full of very fine
+stained glass, and contain good pictures and monuments. The transepts
+are remarkable for their magnificent rose-windows, and in the north
+transept there is a staircase of open-tracery work of exquisite
+workmanship.
+
+'The choir, separated from the nave by a modern Grecian screen, was
+built in the thirteenth century, the carving of the stalls is extremely
+curious. The elaborately carved screen in front of the sacristy was
+executed in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and its
+wrought-iron door must not be passed unnoticed.'[45]
+
+The Church of St. Ouen 'surpasses the cathedral in size, purity of
+style, masterly execution, and splendid, but judicious decoration, and
+is inferior only in its historic monuments. It is one of the noblest and
+most perfect Gothic edifices in the world.' Thus it has been described
+again and again; suffice it for us to mention a few details of its
+construction. It is said that the abbey of St. Ouen was orginally built
+in 533, in the reign of Clothaire I., and then dedicated to St. Peter.
+Through various changes of construction and destruction, it holds a
+prominent part in the history of the time of the Conqueror and the Dukes
+of Normandy; and it was not for a thousand years after its foundation
+that the present building was completed. 'During the troubles of the
+times of the Huguenots in the sixteenth century, it suffered greatly,
+especially in 1562, when the fanatics lighted bonfires inside, and burnt
+the organ, stalls, pulpit, and vestments.' Again at the end of the
+eighteenth century, 'the building was exposed to the fury of the
+Revolutionists, when it was used as a manufactory of arms; a forge being
+erected within it and the painted windows so blackened as to become
+indecipherable; and later still, 'in the time of Napoleon I., a project
+was laid before him, by the municipality of Rouen, for destroying the
+church altogether!'
+
+Perhaps there is no monument that we could point to in Europe which has
+a more eventful history, or which, after a lapse of thirteen hundred
+years, presents to the spectator, in the year 1869, a grander spectacle.
+If we walk in the public gardens that surround it, and see its towers,
+from different points, through the trees, or, better still, ascend one
+of the towers and look down on its pinnacles, we shall never lose the
+memory of St. Ouen. The beautiful proportions of its octagon tower,
+terminating with a crown of _fleurs de lis_, has well been called a
+'model of grace and beauty;' whilst its interior, 443 feet long and 83
+feet wide, unobstructed from one end to the other, with its light,
+graceful pillars, and the coloured light shed through the painted
+windows, have as fine an effect as that of any church in France; not
+excepting the cathedrals of Amiens and Chartres.
+
+We should not omit to mention the beautiful church of St. Maclou at
+Rouen, and several others that are being preserved and restored with the
+utmost care. The great delights of this city are its ecclesiastical
+monuments; for if Rouen has become of late years (as in fact it has) a
+busy, modern town; if its old houses and streets are being swept away,
+its churches and monuments remain. And if, as we have said, the
+inhabitants are prone to imitate many English habits and customs, there
+is one custom of ours that they do not imitate--they do not
+'religiously' close nearly every church in the land for six days out of
+the seven; their places of worship are not shut up like dungeons, they
+are open to the breath of life, and partake of the atmosphere of the
+'work-a-day' world.[46] In England we dust out our earthy little chapels
+on Saturdays, and we complete the process with silken trains on
+Sundays; we worship in an atmosphere more fit for the dead than the
+living, and in a few hours shut up the buildings again to the spiders
+and the flies!
+
+We have little more to say to the reader about the churches in Normandy,
+and we should like to leave him best at the south-west corner of the
+square in front of the Cathedral (close to the spot from which M.
+Clerget has made his drawing), where he may take away with him an
+impression of the wealth and grandeur of the architecture of Normandy,
+pleasant to dwell upon.
+
+If we do not examine too closely into 'principles,' or trouble our minds
+too much with 'styles' of architecture, the effect that we obtain here
+will be completely and artistically beautiful, and satisfying to the
+eye. It is not easy to point out any modern building that fulfils these
+conditions; where, for instance, can we see anything like the work that
+was bestowed on the lower portion of this facade? We may spend more
+money and effort, but we do not achieve anything which seems to the
+spectator more spontaneously beautiful (if we use the word aright);
+anything displaying more wealth of decoration, combined with grandeur of
+effect. Severe, we might say austere, critics speak of the 'confusion of
+ornament,' and tell us that the over-elaboration of carving on the
+exterior of this cathedral is a sign of decadence, and that the
+principles on which the architects of Caen and Bayeux worked were more
+noble and worthy; whilst architects will tell us that Gothic art was
+generally 'debased' at Rouen,--debased from the time when people gave
+themselves up to the luxury of the Renaissance, and 'pride took the
+place of enthusiasm and faith, in art.'
+
+We might, indeed, if we chose to make the comparison for a moment
+between Christian and Mahommedan art, see a higher principle at work in
+the construction of the mosques and palaces of the Moors, where
+simplicity, refinement, and truth are noticeable in every line; we might
+see it in mauresque work, in the absence of grotesque images, or the
+imitation of living things in ornament; but, above all, in the severe
+simplicity and grandeur of their _exteriors_, and in the decoration,
+colour, and gilding of their interior courts alone,--carrying out, in
+short, the true meaning of the words that, the king's daughter should
+be--'all glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On one Sunday morning at Rouen we go with 'all the world' to be present
+at a musical mass at the cathedral, and to hear another great preacher
+from Paris. It was a grander performance than the one we attended at
+Caen; but the sermon was less eloquent, less refined, and was remarkable
+in quite a different way. It was a discourse, holding up to his hearers,
+as far as we could follow the rapid flow of his eloquence, the delight
+and glory of 'doing battle for Right'--of fighting (to use the common
+phrase) the 'fight of Faith.'
+
+But he was preaching to a congregation of shopkeepers, traders, and
+artisans, and his appeal to arms seemed to fall flatly on the trading
+mind; whilst the old incongruity between the building and the dress of
+the nineteenth century, was as remarkable as it is in Westminster Abbey;
+and the contrast between the unchivalrous aspect of the speaker, and the
+tone of his language, was more striking still.[47]
+
+What priest or cure, in these days, stands forth in his presence or
+influence, as the ideal champion of a romantic faith, the ceremonials of
+which seem more and more alienated from the spirit of the nineteenth
+century--at least in the north of Europe, where colour, imagination, and
+passion have less influence? What real sympathy has the kind, fat,
+fatherly figure before us with soldiers, saints, or martyrs?[48]
+
+He preached for nearly an hour, with frequent pauses and strange changes
+in the inflexion of the voice. We will not attempt a repetition of his
+arguments, but must record one sentence in an extempore sermon of great
+versatility and power; a sentence that, if we understood it aright, was
+singularly liberal and broad in view. Speaking of the rivalry that
+existed between the different sects of Christians, and making pointed
+allusion to the colony of protestant Huguenots established at Beuzeval
+on the sea-shore, he ended with the words, 'Better than all this rivalry
+and strife (far better than the common result amongst men, indifference)
+that, like ships becalmed at sea,--when a religious breeze stirs our
+hearts--we should raise aloft our fair white sails and come sailing into
+port together, lowering them in the haven of the one true church.'
+
+He made a pause several times in his discourse, during which he looked
+about him, and mopped his head with his handkerchief, and behaved, for
+the moment, much more as if he were in his dressing-room than in a
+public pulpit; but he held his audience with magic sway, his influence
+over the people was wonderful--wonderful to us when we listened to his
+imagery, and to the means used to stir their hearts.[49]
+
+In the picturesque and moving times of the middle ages it must surely
+have needed less forcing and fewer formulae to 'lift up the hearts of the
+people to the Queen of Heaven;' if it were only in the likeness of the
+black doll, which they worship at Chartres to this day. But until we
+realise to ourselves more completely the lives of warriors in mediaeval
+days, we shall never understand how chivalry and the worship of beauty
+entered into their hearts and lives, and was to them the highest and
+noblest of virtues; nor shall we comprehend their ready acceptance of
+the adoration of the Virgin as the one true religion.
+
+In such a building as the cathedral at Rouen, it is impossible to forget
+the people who once trod its pavement; memories that not all the modern
+paraphernalia and glitter can obliterate. If we visit the cathedral
+after vespers, when the candles in the Lady-chapel look like
+glowworm-lights through the dark aisles, we are soon carried back in
+imagination to mediaeval days. The floor of the nave is covered with
+kneeling figures of warriors, each with a red cross on his breast; the
+pavement resounds to the clash of arms; there is a low chorus of voices
+in prayer, a sound of stringed instruments, a silence--and then, an army
+of men rise up and march to war. There is a pause of six hundred years,
+and another procession passes through these aisles; the pavement
+resounds to less martial footsteps,--they are not warriors, they are
+'Cook's excursionists'!
+
+Let us now leave the cathedral, and see something more of the town.
+
+It is a fine summer's afternoon, in the middle of the week, the air is
+soft and quiet; the busy population of Rouen seem, with one consent, to
+rest from labour, and the Goddess of Leisure tells her beads. One, two
+(decrepit old men); three, four, five (nurses and children); six, seven,
+eight (Chasseurs de Vincennes or a 'noble Zouave),' and so on, until the
+Rosary is complete and there are no more seats.[50] Every day under our
+windows they come and wedge themselves close together on the long stone
+seats under the dusty trees, to rest; and thread themselves in rows one
+by one, as if some unseen hand were telling, with human beads, the
+mystery of the Rosary.
+
+Why do we speak of what is done every day in every city of France?
+Because it is worth a moment's notice, that in the day-time of busy
+cities men can, if they choose, find time to rest. There are gardens
+open, and seats provided in the middle of the cities, so that the poor
+children need not play on dustheaps and under carriage-wheels. There is
+a small open square in the heart of Rouen, laid out with rocks and
+trees, and a waterfall, which we should dearly like to shew to certain
+'parish guardians.'
+
+The modern business-like aspect of Rouen communicates itself even to
+religious matters, and before we have been here long, we think nothing
+of seeing piles of crucifixes, and 'Virgins and children', put out in
+the street in boxes for sale, at a 'fabrique d'ornaments de l'eglise.'
+We, the people of Rouen, do a great business in _chasublerie_, and the
+like; we drive hard bargains for images of the Saviour in zinc and iron
+(they are catalogued for us, and placed in rows in the shop windows); we
+purchase _lachryma Christi_ by the dozen; and, for a few sous, may
+become possessed of the whole paraphernalia of the Holy Manger.
+
+We have been cheated so often at Rouen, that we are inclined to ask the
+question whether we, English people, really possess a higher working
+morality than the French. Are we really more straightforward and
+honourable than they? Are there bounds which they overstep and which we
+cannot pass? It has been our pride for centuries to be considered more
+noble and manly than many of our neighbours; is there any reason to fear
+that our moral influence is on the wane, in these days of universal
+interchange of thought, free-trade, and rapid intercommunication?
+
+In the course of our journey through Normandy, we have not said much
+about modern paintings, but at Rouen we are reminded that there are many
+French artists hard at work. The most prominent painters are those of
+the school of Edouard Frere, who depict scenes of cottage life, with the
+earnestness, if not always with the elevated sentiment of Mason, Walker,
+and other, younger, English painters. The works of many of these French
+artists are familiar to us in England, and we need not allude to them
+further; but there is an exhibition of water-colour drawings at Rouen,
+about which we must say a word.[51]
+
+These sketches of towns in Normandy, and of pastoral scenes, have a
+curious family likeness, and a mannerism which the French may call
+'_chic_,' but which we are inclined to attribute to want of power and
+patient study. There is an old-fashioned formality in the composition of
+their landscapes, which does not seem to our eyes to belong to the world
+of to-day, and a decidedly amateurish treatment which is surprising.
+They repeat themselves and each other, without end, and evidently are
+thinking more about _Beranger_ than the places of which he sang; they
+would seek (as some one expresses it) to 'reconcile literal facts with
+rapturous harmonies,' in short they attempt too much, and accomplish too
+little. In form and feature, these pictures remind us (like Rouen
+itself) of a bygone time, when travelling on the Continent was difficult
+and expensive, and views of foreign towns were not easy to obtain; when
+some distinguished amateur (distinguished, perhaps, more for his courage
+and industry than for his art) visited the Continent at rare intervals,
+and brought home in triumph a few hazy sketches of a people that we had
+scarce heard of, and hardly believed in; and had them engraved and
+multiplied, for the art-loving amongst us, as the best treasures of the
+time.
+
+The modernised aspect of Rouen is one that we (as lookers-on merely)
+shall never cease to regret, because it is the town of all others which
+should tell us most of the past; and it is, moreover, the one town in
+Normandy which most English people find time to see.
+
+But if most of its individuality and character have vanished, its
+sanitary condition and its wealth, have, we must admit, improved greatly
+under the new regime. 'When I walk through the enormous streets and
+boulevards of new Paris,' says a well-known writer, 'I feel appalled by
+the change, but unable to dispute with it mentally, for it bears the
+imprint of an idea which is becoming dominant over Europe. For the
+moment the individuality of man as expressed in his dwelling (as in the
+house in our frontispiece) is gone--suppressed. The human creature no
+longer builds for himself, decorates for himself; no longer lets loose
+his fancy, his humour, his notions of the fitting and the comfortable.
+Science and economy go hand in hand, and lay down his streets and erect
+his houses.' Thus, although, from an artistic point of view, we shall
+never be reconciled to the changes that have come over Normandy, we
+cannot ignore the consequent social advantages. Mr. Ruskin, speaking of
+the change in Switzerland during his memory of it (thirty-five years)
+says:--'In that half of the permitted life of man I have seen strange
+evil brought upon every scene that I best loved, or tried to make
+beloved by others. The light which once flushed those pale summits with
+its rose at dawn and purple at sunset, is now umbered and faint; the air
+which once inlaid the clefts of all their golden crags with azure, is
+now defiled with languid coils of smoke, belched from worse than
+volcanic fires; their very glacier waves are ebbing, and their snows
+fading, as if hell had breathed on them; the waters that once sunk at
+their feet into crystalline rest, are now dimmed and foul, from deep to
+deep, and shore to shore.'
+
+But the clouds of smoke that defile the land, the shrieking of steam,
+and the perpetual, terrible grinding of iron against iron (sounds which
+our little children grow up not to heed) are part of a system which
+enables Mr. Ruskin, one day to address a crowd in the theatre of the
+British Institution, and on the next--or the next but one--to utter this
+lament on the banks of Lake Leman. His remarks, with which so many will
+sympathise, lose point and consequence from the fact of his own rapid
+translation from one place to another, and from the advantages _we_ gain
+by his travelling on the wings of steam. And there is a certain
+consolation in the knowledge that in the days when the waters of Geneva
+were of 'purest blue,' the accommodation for travellers at the old
+hostelries was less favourable to peace of mind.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+_THE VALLEY OF THE SEINE._
+
+
+In the fruitful hills that border the river Seine, and form part of the
+great watershed of Lower Normandy, Nature has poured forth her
+blessings; and her daughters, who are here lightly sketched, dispense
+her bounties.
+
+It is a pleasant thing to pass homeward through this 'food-producing'
+land--to go leisurely from town to town, and see something more of
+country life in Normandy--to see the laden orchards, the cattle upon the
+hills, and the sloping fields of corn. It is yet early in the autumn,
+but the variety of colour spread over the landscape is delightful to the
+eye; the rich brown of the buckwheat, the bright yellow mustard; the
+green pastures by rivers, and the poppies in the golden corn; the
+fields, divided by high hedges, and interspersed with mellowed trees;
+the orchards raining fruit that glitters in the sunshine as it falls;
+the purple heath, the luxuriant ferns. There is '_une recolte
+magnifique_' this year, and the people have but one thought--'the
+gathering in;' the country presents to us a picture--not like Watteau's
+'_fetes galantes_,' but rather that of an English harvest-home.
+
+We are in the midst of the cornfields near Villers-sur-mer, and the
+hill-side is glorious; it is covered to the very summit with
+riches--the heavily-laden corn-stems wave their crests against a blue
+horizon, whilst, in a cleft of the hill, a long line of poppies winds
+downwards in one scarlet stream. They are set thickly in some places,
+and form a blaze of colour, inconceivably, painfully brilliant--a
+concentration of light as utterly beyond our power of imitation by the
+pencil, as genius is removed from ordinary minds. We could not paint it
+if we would, but we may see in it an allegory of plenty, and of peace
+(of that peace which France so urgently desires); we may see her
+blood-red banner of war laid down to garland the hill-side with its
+crimson folds, and her children laying their offerings at the feet of
+Ceres and forgetting Mars altogether. The national anthem becomes no
+longer a natural refrain--anything would sound more appropriate than
+'partant pour la Syrie' (there is no time for _that_ work)--to our
+little friend in fluttering blouse, who sits in the grass and 'minds'
+fifty head of cattle by moral force alone; we should rather sing:--
+
+  'Little boy blue, come blow me your horn,
+  The orchards are laden, the cow 's in the corn!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We cannot leave this pastoral scene, at least until the evening; when
+the sun goes down behind the sea--leaving a glow upon the hill-side and
+upon the crowd of gleaners who have just come up, and casts long shadows
+across the stubble and on the sheaves of corn; when the harvest moon
+shines out, and the picture is completed--the corn--sheaves lighted on
+one side by the western glow, on the other by the moon; like the famous
+shield over which knights did battle,--one side silver, the other gold.
+
+All this time we are within sight, and nearly within sound, of the
+'happy hunting grounds' of Trouville and Deauville, but the country
+people are singularly unaffected by the proximity of those pretty
+towns, invented by Dumas and peopled by his following.[52] It is true
+that on the walls of a little village inn, there is something paraded
+about a 'Trouville Association, Limited,' and a company for 'the passage
+of the Simplon,' with twenty-franc shares; but these things do not seem
+to find much favour amongst the thrifty peasantry. They have, in their
+time, been tempted to unearth their treasures, and to invest in bubble
+companies like the rest of the world; but there is a reaction here, the
+Normans evidently thinking, like the old Colonnae, that a hole in the
+bottom of the garden is about the safest place after all. And they have,
+it is true, some other temptations which come to them with a cheap
+press, such as '_la surete financiere_,' '_le moniteur des tirages
+financiers_,' '_le petit moniteur financier_,' &c., newspapers whose
+special business it is, to teach the people how to get rid of their
+savings, we are speaking, of course, of the comparatively uneducated
+agricultural population--the farmers, all through the district we have
+come, especially near Vire and Falaise, being rich _proprietaires_ and
+investing largely; and there are many other things in these half-penny
+French newspapers which find their way into these remote corners of
+France, which must make the cure sometimes regret that he had taught his
+flock to read. In a little paper which lies before us, the first article
+is entitled '_Le miroir du diable_;' then follows a long account of a
+poisoning case in Paris, and some songs from a _cafe chantant_,
+interspersed with illustrations of the broadest kind. But let us not be
+too critical; we have seen many things in France which would startle
+Englishmen, but nothing, we venture to say, more harmful in its
+tendency, than the weekly broad-sheet of crime which is spread out over
+our own land (to the number, the proprietors boast, of at least a
+hundred thousand[53]), wherein John and Jane, who can only sign their
+names with a cross, read in hideous cartoons, suggestions of cruelty and
+crime more revolting than any the schoolmaster could have taught them.
+
+In these rich and prosperous provinces, the people (revolutionary and
+excitable as their ancestors were) certainly appear happy and contented;
+the most uneducated of them are quick-witted and ready in reply, they
+are not boorish or sullen, they have more readiness--at least in
+manner--than the germanic races, and are, as a rule, full of gaiety and
+humour. These people do not want war, they hate the conscription which
+takes away the flower of the flock; they regard with anything but
+pleasure the rather dictatorial '_Moniteur_' that comes to them by post
+sometimes, whether they ask for it or not, and would much rather be
+'let alone.'[54]
+
+Such is a picture of Lower Normandy, the land of plenty where we wander
+with so much pleasure in the summer months, putting up at wayside inns
+(where the hostess makes her 'note' on a slate and finds it hard work to
+make the amount come to more than five francs, for the night, for board
+and lodging for 'monsieur') and at farmhouses sometimes; chatting with
+the people in their rather troublesome patois, and making excursions
+with the local antiquary or cure, to some spot celebrated in history.
+They are pleasant days, when, if we will put up with a few
+inconveniences, and live principally out of doors, we may see and hear
+much that a railway traveller misses altogether. We shall not admire the
+system of farming, as a rule (each farmer holding only a few acres); and
+we shall find some of the cottages of the labourers very primitive,
+badly built, and unhealthy, although generally neat; we shall notice
+that the people are cruel, and careless of the sufferings of animals,
+and that no farm servant knows how to groom a horse. We shall see them
+clever in making cider, and prone to drink it; we shall see plenty of
+fine, strong, rather idle men and women in the fields carrying
+tremendous burdens, but hardly any children; they are almost as rare in
+the country as a lady, or a gentleman. Indeed, in all our country
+wanderings the 'gentry' make little figure, and appear much less
+frequently on the scene than we are accustomed to in England. There are,
+of course, _proprietaires_ in this part of Normandy who spend both
+their time and money in the country, and are spoken of with respect and
+affection by the people; but they are _rarae aves_, men of mark, like the
+founder of the protestant colony at Beuzeval on the sea.
+
+Nearly every Sunday after harvest-time there will be a village wedding,
+where we may see the bride and bridegroom coming to take 'the first
+sacrament;' seated in a prominent place in front of the altar, and
+receiving the elements before the rest of the congregation, the bride
+placing a white favour on the basket which contains the consecrated
+bread, and afterwards coming from the church, the bride with a cap
+nearly a foot high, the bridegroom wearing a dress coat, with a
+tremendous bouquet, and a wedding-ring on his fore-finger; and, if we
+stand near the church porch, we may be deafened with a salute fired by
+the villagers in honour of the occasion, and overwhelmed by the
+eloquence of the 'best man,' who takes this opportunity of delivering a
+speech; and finally, the bells will ring out with such familiar tone
+that we can hardly realise that we are in France.[55]
+
+These people are of the labouring class, but they have some money to
+'commence life' with; the poorest girls seldom marry without a portion
+(indeed, so important is this considered amongst them that there are
+societies for providing portions for the unendowed), and they are, with
+few exceptions, provident and happy in married life. They are so in the
+country at least, in spite of all that has been said and written to the
+contrary. A lady who has had five-and-twenty years' acquaintance with
+French society, both in town and country, assures us that 'the
+stereotyped literary and dramatic view of French married life is
+wickedly false.' The corruption of morals, she says, which so generally
+prevails in Paris, and which has been so systematically aggravated by
+the luxury and extravagance of the second Empire, has emboldened writers
+to foist these false pictures of married life on the world.
+
+But we, as travellers, must not enter deeply into these questions; our
+business is, as usual, principally with their picturesque aspect. And
+there is plenty to see; a few miles from us there is the little town of
+Pont l'Eveque; and of course there is a fete going on. Let us glance at
+the official programme for the day:--
+
+     'At 10 A.M., agricultural and horticultural meetings.
+
+     From 11 to 12, musical mass; several pieces to be performed by the
+     band of the 19th Regiment.
+
+     At 12-1/2, meeting of the Orpheonists and other musical societies.
+
+     1 P.M., ordering and march of a procession, and review of
+     Sappers and Miners.
+
+     2 P.M., ascension of grotesque balloons.
+
+     2-1/2 P.M., race of velocipedes.
+
+     3-1/2 P.M., climbing poles and races in sacks.
+
+     5 P.M., performance of music in the _Place de l'Eglise_;
+     band of the 19th Regiment.
+
+     6 P.M., grand dinner in the College Hall, with toasts,
+     speeches, and concert.
+
+     8 P.M., general illumination with Chinese lanterns, &c.
+
+     9 P.M., Display of fireworks; procession with torches to
+     the music of the military band.'
+
+     N.B. Every householder is requested to contribute to the gaiety by
+     illuminating his own house--_By order of the Maire._
+
+How the rather obscure little town of Pont l'Eveque suddenly becomes
+important,--how it puts on (as only a French town knows how to do) an
+alluring and coquettish appearance; how the people promenade arm and
+arm, up the street and down the street, on the dry little _place_, and
+under the shrivelled-up trees; how they play at cards and dominoes in
+the middle of the road, and crowd to the canvas booths outside the
+town--would be a long task to tell. They crowd everywhere--to the
+menagerie of wild beasts, to see the 'pelican of the wilderness;' to the
+penny peepshows, where they fire six shots for a sou at a plaster cast
+of Bismarck; to the lotteries for crockery and bonbons, and to all sorts
+of exhibitions 'gratis.' Of the quantity of cider and absinthe consumed
+in one day, the holiday-makers may have rather a confused and careless
+recollection, as they are jogged home, thirteen deep in a long cart,
+with a neglected, footsore old horse, weighed down with his clumsy
+harness and his creaking load, and deafened by the jingling of his rusty
+bells.
+
+But if we happen to be in one of the larger towns during the time of the
+Imperial fetes (the 15th of August), or at a seaport on the occasion of
+the annual procession in honour of the Virgin, we shall see a more
+striking ceremony still. The processions are very characteristic, with
+the long lines of fisherwomen in their scarlet and coloured dresses, and
+handkerchiefs tied round the head; the fishermen, old and
+weather-beaten, boys in semi-naval costume, neat and trim; and perhaps a
+hundred little children, dressed in blue and white. A dense mass of
+people crowding through the hot streets all day, impressive from their
+numbers, and from the quiet orderly method of their procession, headed
+and marshalled, of course, by the clergy and manoeuvred to the sound
+of bells. There is such a perpetual ringing of bells, and the trains run
+so frequently, that those who are not accustomed to such sights may
+become confused as to their true meaning. We learn, however, from the
+_affiches_ that it is all in honour of 'Our Lady of Hope,' that the
+_externes_ from one school parade the streets to-day, wearing wreaths
+and carrying banners and crowns of flowers; that others bear aloft the
+'cipher of Mary,' the banner of the Immaculate Conception, baskets of
+roses, oriflammes, &c.; that twenty grown-up men parade the town with
+the 'banner of the Sacred Heart,' and that a party of young ladies, in
+white dresses fringed with gold, brave the heat and the dust, and crowd
+to do honour to the 'Queen of Angels.' A multitude with streamers and
+banners, a confusion of colour and gilding, passing to and from the
+churches all day; and at night, fire balloons, _feu d'artifice_, open
+theatres, and 'general joy.'
+
+Of one more ceremony we must speak, differing in character, but equally
+characteristic and curious. We are in the country again, spending our
+days in sketching, or wandering amongst the hills; enjoying the 'perfect
+weather,' as we call it, and a little careless, perhaps, of the fact
+that the land is parched with thirst, that the springs are dried up, and
+that the peasants are beginning to despair of rain.
+
+We see a little white smoke curling through the branches of the trees,
+and hear in faint, uncertain cadence, the voices of men and children
+singing. Presently there comes up the pathway between two lines of
+poplars, a long procession, headed by a priest, holding high in the air
+a glittering cross; there are old men with bowed heads, young men erect,
+with shaven crowns, and boys in scarlet and white robes, carrying
+silver censers; there is a clanking of silver chains, a tinkling of
+little bells, and an undertone of oft-repeated prayer. The effect is
+startling, and brilliant; the sunlight glances upon the white robes of
+the men, in alternate stripes of soft shadow and dazzling brightness,
+the wind plays round their feet as they march heavily along, in a whirl
+of dust which robs the leaves of their morning freshness; whilst the
+scarlet robes of the children light up the grove as with a furnace, and
+the rush of voices disturbs the air. On they come through the quiet
+country fields, hot and dusty with their long march, the foremost priest
+holding his head high, and doing his routine work manfully--never
+wearying of repeating the same words, or of opening and shutting the
+dark-bound volume in his hand; and the children, not yet quite weary of
+singing, and of swinging incense-burners--keeping close together two and
+two in line; the people following being less regular, less apparently
+enthusiastic, but walking close together in a long winding stream up the
+hill.
+
+What does it all mean? Why, that these simple people want rain on the
+land, and that they have collected from all parts of the country to
+offer their prayers, and their money, to propitiate the Deity. Could we,
+but for one moment, as onlookers from some other sphere, see this line
+of creeping things on their earnest errand, the sight would seem a
+strange one. Do these atoms on the earth's surface hope to change the
+order of the elements, to serve their own purposes? If rain were needed,
+would it not come?
+
+But we are in a land where we are taught, not only to pray for our
+wants, but to pay for their expression; so let us not question the
+motive of the procession, but follow it again in the evening, into the
+town, where it becomes lost in the crowded streets--so crowded that we
+cannot see more than the heads of the people; but the line is marked
+above them by a stream of sunset, which turns the dust-particles above
+their heads into a golden fringe. They make a halt in the square and
+sing the 'Angelus,' and then enter the cathedral, where the priest
+offers up a prayer--a prayer which we would interpret--not for rain, if
+drought be best, but rather for help and strength to fight the battle of
+life in the noblest way.
+
+Such scenes may still be witnessed in Normandy (although, of course,
+becoming less primitive and characteristic every year) by those who are
+not compelled to hurry through the land.
+
+In the country districts the habits of the peasant class are the only
+ones that a traveller has any opportunity of observing; of the upper
+classes he will see nothing, and of their domestic life obtain no idea
+whatever. It is not to be accomplished, _en passant_, in Normandy, any
+more than in Vienna. In the inns, the company at the public table
+consists almost invariably of French commercial travellers, and the two
+English ladies whom we meet with everywhere, travelling together. There
+is hardly an hotel in Normandy, excepting, of course, at the
+watering-places (of which we shall speak in the last chapter), that
+would be considered well appointed, according to modern notions of
+comfort and convenience. Ladies travelling alone would certainly find
+themselves better accommodated in Switzerland or in the Pyrenees;
+excepting in the matter of expense, for Normandy is still one of the
+cheapest parts of Europe to travel in--the Russians and Americans not
+having yet come.
+
+We meet, as we have said, but few French people above the farming and
+commercial class; our fellow-travellers being generally 'unprotected'
+Englishwomen who may be seen in summer-time at the various railway
+stations--fighting their way to the front in the battle of the
+'_bagages_,' and speaking French to the officials with a grammatical
+fervour, and energy, which is wonderful to contemplate[56]--taking their
+places on the top of a diligence, amongst fowls and cheeses, with the
+heroic self sacrifice that would be required to mount a barricade; in
+short, placing themselves continually (and unnecessarily, it must be
+admitted) in positions inconsistent with English notions of propriety,
+and exposing themselves, for pleasure's sake, to more roughness and
+rudeness than is good for their sex. These things arise sometimes from
+necessity--on which we have not a word to say--but more frequently from
+a rigid determination to 'economize,' in a way that they would not dream
+of doing at home.
+
+We would certainly suggest that English ladies should not elect to
+travel by the diligences, and in out-of-the-way places, _unattended_;
+and that they had better not attempt to 'rough it' in Normandy, if they
+are able (by staying at home) to avoid the concussion.
+
+To most men, this diligence travelling is charming--the seat on the
+_banquette_ on a fine summer's day is one of the most enjoyable places
+in life; it is cheap, and certainly not too rapid (five or six miles an
+hour being the average); and we can sit almost as comfortably in a
+corner of the banquette as in an easy-chair. In this beautiful country
+we should always either drive or walk, if we have time; the diligence is
+the most amusing and sometimes the slowest method of progress. Nobody
+hurries--although we carry 'the mails' and have a letter-box in the side
+of the conveyance, where letters are posted as we go along, it is
+scarcely like travelling--the free and easy way in which people come and
+go on the journey is more like 'receiving company' than taking up
+passengers. As we jog along, to the jingling of bells and the creaking
+of rusty iron, the people that we overtake on the road keep accumulating
+on our vehicle one by one, as we approach a town, until we become
+encrusted with human things like a rock covered with limpets. There is
+no shaking them off, the driver does not care, and they certainly do not
+all pay. It is a pleasant family affair which we should all be sorry to
+see disturbed; and the roads are so good and even, that it does not
+matter much about the load. The neglect and cruelty to the horses, which
+we are obliged to witness, is certainly one drawback,[57] and the dust
+and crowding on market days, are not always pleasant; but we can think
+of no other objections in fine weather, to this quiet method of seeing
+the country.
+
+Much has been said in favour of 'a walking tour in Normandy,' but we
+venture to question its thorough enjoyment when undertaken for long
+distances; and it can scarcely be called 'economical to walk,' unless
+the pedestrian's time is of no value to other people.
+
+Let us be practical, and state the cost of travelling over the whole of
+the ground that we have mapped out. We may assume that the most
+determined pedestrian will not commence active operations until he
+reaches Havre, or some other seaport town. From Havre to Pont Audemer by
+steamboat; thence by road or railway to _all_ the towns on our route
+(visiting Rouen by the Seine, from Honfleur), and so back to Havre, will
+cost a 'knapsack-traveller' 46 francs 50 c., if he takes the banquette of
+the diligence and travels third class, by railway. Thus it is a
+question of less than two pounds, for those who study economy, whilst at
+least a month's time is saved by taking the diligence.
+
+One argument for walking is, that you may leave the high roads at
+pleasure, and see more of the country and of the people; but the
+pedestrian has his day's work before him, and must spend the greater
+part of an August day on the dusty road, in order to reach his
+destination. There are districts, such as those round Vire and Mortain,
+which are exceptionally hilly, where he might walk from town to town;
+but he will not see the country as well, even there, as from the
+elevated position of a banquette. The finest parts of Normandy are
+generally in the neighbourhood of towns which the traveller (who has
+driven to them) can explore on his arrival, without fatigue; _chacun a
+son gout_--these smooth, well-levelled roads are admirably adapted for
+velocipedes--but we confess to preferring the public conveyances, to any
+other method of travelling in France.
+
+Let us conclude our remarks on this subject with an extract from the
+published diary of a pedestrian, who thus describes his journey from
+Lisieux to Caen, a distance of about twenty-six miles:--
+
+     'It is nightfall,' he says, 'before I have walked more than
+     half-way to Caen; to the left of the road I see a number of lights
+     indicative of a small town, but I perceive no road in that
+     direction, and so am compelled to trudge on. I was dreadfully
+     fatigued, for I had walked about Lisieux before starting. In the
+     faint light, I thought I saw a dog cross the road just before me,
+     but soon perceived that it must be a spectral one, the result of
+     excessive fatigue. At length I reach a lamp-post, with the light
+     still burning, indicating that I am in the suburbs of Caen. The
+     road proceeds down a steep hill. I don't know how long it would
+     seem to the visitor in the ordinary way, but to myself, prostrated
+     by fatigue, it appeared on this night a long and weary tramp.'--'A
+     Walking Tour in Normandy!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_ARCHITECTURE AND COSTUME._
+
+
+In the course of our little pilgrimage through Normandy, it may have
+been thought that we dwelt with too much earnestness and enthusiasm on
+the architecture of the middle ages, as applicable to buildings in the
+nineteenth century. Let us repeat our belief, that it is in its
+_adaptability_ to our wants, both practical and artistic, that its true
+value consists. Mediaeval architects in England are never tired of
+insisting upon this fact; although hitherto they must confess to a
+certain amount of failure, because, perhaps, they attempt too much.
+
+If one were to judge by what appears to be going on in nearly every town
+in England at the present time, we should say that there never was a
+time when architecture was so much considered. 'Every town' (says a late
+writer, speaking of the extent of this movement), 'that shares the
+progress and character of the age, has a new town hall, a new exchange,
+new schools, and every institution for which an honest pretence can be
+found. A stranger, possessing an interest in the town, and with no claim
+upon it excepting that it shall please his eye, must be charmed with the
+profuse display of towers, turrets, pinnacles, and pointed roofs,
+windows of all sorts, niches, arcades, battlements, bosses, and
+everything else to be found in an architectural glossary. He may wonder
+why a lofty tower--sometimes several towers--should be necessary to the
+trying cases of assault and petty larceny, to the reading of newspapers,
+to the inspection of samples of wheat, or to the drilling of little boys
+in declensions and conjugations; but that is not his affair, and he has
+nothing to do with it, except to be thankful for a good sky-line, and a
+well-relieved, but yet harmonious, facade.' Nevertheless, we live in
+certain hope of a more practical application of beauty and simplicity of
+form, to the wants and requirements of our own day; and we believe that
+it is possible to have both cheap and useful buildings, graceful in
+form, and harmonious in colour and design.
+
+But notwithstanding our admiration for the buildings of the thirteenth
+and fourteenth centuries, we are bound to confess that many of them,
+both churches and dwellings, fail too often in essentials. Their
+dwellings are often deficient in light and ventilation, and are built
+with a lavish expenditure of materials; and their churches sometimes
+fail in carrying out the very object for which they were constructed,
+viz., the transmission of sound.
+
+Still it is possible--as we have seen at Caen and Bayeux--to have
+noble, gothic interiors which do not 'drown the voice' of the preacher;
+and it is also possible--as we have seen in many towns in Normandy--to
+build ornamental and healthy dwellings at a moderate cost. The
+extraordinary adaptability of Gothic architecture over all other styles,
+is a subject on which the general public is very ignorant, and with
+which it has little sympathy. The mediaeval architect is a sad and
+solitary man (who ever met a cheery one?), because his work is so little
+understood; yet if he would only meet the enemy of expediency and
+ugliness half-way, and condescend to teach us how to build not merely
+_economically_, but well at the same time, he would no longer be 'the
+waif and stray of an inartistic century.'
+
+Shadows rise around us as we write--dim reproachful shadows of an age of
+unspeakable beauty in constructive art, and of (apparently)
+unapproachable excellence in design; and the question recurs to us
+again--Can we ever hope to compete with thirteenth-century buildings
+whilst we lead nineteenth-century lives? It may not be in our
+generation, but the time will assuredly come when, as has been well
+remarked, 'the living vigour of humanity will break through the monotony
+of modern arrangements and assert itself in new forms--forms which may
+cause a new generation to feel less regret at being compelled to walk in
+straight lines.'
+
+Here our thoughts, on the great question of architectural beauty and
+fitness, turn naturally to a New World. If, as we believe, there is a
+life and energy in the West which must sooner or later make its mark in
+the world, and perhaps take a lead for a while, amongst the nations, in
+the practical application of Science and Art; may it not rest with a
+generation of Americans yet unborn, to create--out of such elements as
+the fast-fading Gothic of the middle ages--a style of architecture that
+will equal it in beauty, and yet be more suitable to a modern era; a
+style that shall spring spontaneously from the wants and requirements of
+the age--an age that shall prize beauty of form as much as utility of
+design? Do we dream dreams? Is it quite beyond the limits of possibility
+that an art, that has been repeating itself for ages in Europe--until
+the original designs are fading before our eyes, until the moulds have
+been used so often that they begin to lose their sharpness and
+significance--may not be succeeded by a new and living development which
+will be found worthy to take its place side by side with the creations
+of old classic time? Is the idea altogether Utopian--is there not room
+in the world for a 'new style' of architecture--shall we be always
+copying, imitating, restoring--harping for ever on old strings?
+
+It may be that we point to the wrong quarter of the globe, and we shall
+certainly be told that no good thing in art can come from the 'great
+dollar cities of the West,' from a people without monuments and without
+a history; but there are signs of intellectual energy, and a process of
+refinement and cultivation is going on, which it will be well for us of
+the Old World not to ignore. Their day may be not yet; before such a
+change can come, the nation must find rest--the pulse of this great,
+restless, thriving people must beat less quickly, they must know (as the
+Greeks knew it) the meaning of the word 'repose.'
+
+It was a good sign, we thought, when Felix Darley, an American artist on
+a tour through Europe (a '5000 dollar run' is, we believe, the correct
+expression), on arriving at Liverpool, was content to go quietly down
+the Wye, and visit our old abbeys and castles, such as Tintern and
+Kenilworth, instead of taking the express train for London; and it is to
+the many signs of culture and taste for art, which we meet with daily,
+in intercourse with travellers from the western continent, that we look
+with confidence to a great revolution in taste and manners.[58]
+
+To these, then (whom we may be allowed to look upon as pioneers of a new
+and more artistic civilization), and to our many readers on the other
+side of the Atlantic, we would draw attention to the towns in Normandy,
+as worthy of examination, before they pass away from our eyes; towns
+where 'art is still religion,'--towns that were built before the age of
+utilitarianism, and when expediency was a thing unknown. To young
+America we say--'Come and see the buildings of old France; there is
+nothing like them in the western world, neither the wealth of San
+Francisco, nor the culture of its younger generation, can, at present,
+produce anything like them. They are waiting for you in the sunlight of
+this summer evening; the gables are leaning, the waters are sparkling,
+the shadows are deepening on the hills, and the colours on the banners
+that trail in the water, are 'red, white, and blue!'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Word or two here may not be out of place, on some of the modern
+architectural features of Normandy. In some towns that we have passed
+through it would seem as if the old feeling for form and colour had at
+last revived, and that (although perhaps in rather a commonplace way)
+the builders of modern villas and seaside houses were emulating the
+works of their ancestors.
+
+Prom our windows at Houlgate (on the sea-coast, near Trouville) we can
+see modern, half-timbered houses, set in a garden of shrubs and flowers,
+with gables prettily 'fringed,' graceful dormer windows, turrets and
+overhanging eaves; solid oak doors, and windows with carved balconies
+twined about with creepers, with lawns and shady walks surrounding--as
+different from the ordinary type of French country-house with its
+straight avenues and trimly cut trees, as they are remote in design from
+any ordinary English seaside residence; and (this is our point) they are
+not only ornamental and pleasing to the eye, but they are durable, dry,
+and healthy dwellings, and are _not costly to build_.
+
+Here are sketches of four common examples of modern work, all of which
+are within a few yards of our own doors.
+
+No. 1 is a good substantial brick-built house, close to the sea-shore,
+surrounded by shrubs and a small garden. The whole building is of a rich
+warm brown, set off by the darker tints of the woodwork; relieved by the
+bright shutters, the interior fittings, the flowers in the windows and
+the surrounding trees.
+
+No. 2 is a common example of square open turret of dark oak, with slated
+roof; the chimney is of brick and terra-cotta; the frontage of the
+house is of parti-coloured brickwork with stone facings, &c.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+No. 3 is a round tower at a street corner (the turret forming a charming
+boudoir, with extensive view); it is built of red and white brick, the
+slates on the roof are rounded, and the ornamental woodwork is of dark
+oak--the lower story of this house is of stone.
+
+No. 4, which forms one end of a large house, is ornamented with
+light-coloured wooden galleries and carving under the eaves, contrasting
+charmingly with the blue slating of the roofs and the surface tiling of
+the frontage--smooth tiles are introduced exteriorly in diaper patterns,
+chiefly of the majolica colours, which the wind and rain keep ever
+bright and fresh-looking, and which no climate seems to affect. The
+ornamental woodwork on this house is especially noticeable.[59]
+
+There may be nothing architecturally new in these modern 'chateaux' and
+'chalets;' but it is as well to see what the French are doing, with a
+climate, in Normandy, much like our own, and with the same interest as
+ourselves, in building commodious and durable houses. It is pleasant to
+see that even French people care no longer to dim their eyesight with
+bare white walls; that they have had enough of straight lines and
+shadeless windows; that, in short, they are beginning to appreciate the
+beauty of thirteenth-century work.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We have hitherto spoken principally of the architecture of Normandy, but
+we might well go further in our study of old ways, and suggest that
+there were other matters in which we might take a hint from the middle
+ages. First, with respect to DRESS, let us imagine by way of
+illustration, that two gentlemen, clad in the easy and picturesque
+walking costume of the times of the Huguenots 'fall to a wrestling;'
+they may be in fun or in earnest--it matters not--they simply divest
+themselves of their swords, and see, as in our illustration, with what
+perfect ease and liberty of limb they are able to go to work and bring
+every muscle of the body into play. Next, by way of contrast, let us
+picture to ourselves what would happen to a man under the same
+circumstances, in the costume of the present day. If he commenced a
+wrestling match with no more preparation than above (_i.e._ by laying
+down his stick, or umbrella), it would befall him first to lose his hat,
+next to split his coat up the back, and to break his braces; he would
+lose considerably in power and balance from the restraining and
+unnatural shape of all his clothes, he would have no firmness of
+foothold--his toes being useless to him in fashionable boots.
+
+Does the comparison seem far-fetched; and is it not well to make the
+contrast, if it may lead, however slightly, to a consideration of our
+own deformities? We believe that the time is coming when a great
+modification in the dress of our younger men will be adopted, if only
+for health and economy; it will come with the revival, or more general
+practice, of such games as singlestick, wrestling, and the like, and
+with an improved system of physical education. It sounds little better
+than a mockery to speak of deeds of valour and personal prowess, whilst
+we submit to confine our limbs in garments that cramp the frame and
+resist every healthy movement of the body. We must not go farther into
+the question in these pages, but we may ask--were there as many
+narrow-shouldered, weak-chested, delicate men, in the days when every
+gentleman knew how to use a sword?[60]
+
+The extravagances and vagaries of modern costume (for which we can find
+no precedent in the comparative ignorance and barbarism of the middle
+ages) lead to the conviction that there must be a great change, if only
+as a question of health. Travellers who have been in Spain, notice with
+surprise that the men are wrapt literally 'up to their eyes,' in their
+cloaks, whilst the women walk abroad in the bitter wind with only a lace
+veil over their heads and shoulders; but the disproportionate amount of
+clothing that modern society compels men and women to wear in the same
+room seems equally absurd.[61]
+
+And yet there must be some extraordinary fascination in the prevailing
+dress, that induces nearly every European nation to give up its proper
+costume and to be (as the saying is) 'like other people.' There is an
+old adage that you cannot touch pitch without being defiled, and with
+the people of whom we have been speaking, it certainly has its
+application. What is the Normandy peasant's pride on high days and
+holidays in the year 1869, but to put on a 'frock coat' and a _chapeau
+noir;_ to throw away the costume that his fathers wore, to bid farewell
+to colour, character, and freedom of limb, to don the livery of a high
+civilization, and to become (to our poor understanding) anything but the
+'noblest work of God.'
+
+Again, in the little matter of WRITING, may we not learn
+something by looking back three or four hundred years--were not our
+ancestors a little more practical than ourselves? Did the monks of the
+middle ages find it necessary, in order to express a single word on
+paper or parchment, to make the pen (as we do) travel over a distance of
+eight or ten inches?[62] Here are two words,
+
+[Illustration: excellentis]
+
+one written by a lady, educated in the 'pot-hook-and-hanger' school, and
+another, the autograph of William of Malmesbury, an historian of the
+twelfth century. Is the modern method of writing much more legible than
+the old--is it more easily or quickly written; and might not we adopt
+some method of writing, by which to express our meaning in a letter, at
+less length than thirty feet?
+
+We might add something about our misuse of words (as compared with the
+habit of 'calling a spade a spade' in the writings of the old
+chroniclers), about our unnecessary complications, and the number of
+words required to express an idea in these days; and suggest another
+curious consideration, as to how such prolixity affects our thoughts and
+actions.[63] Is it of no moment to be able to express our thoughts
+quickly and easily? Does it help the Bavarian peasant-boy to comprehend
+the fact of the sun's rising over his native hills, that ten consonants,
+in the poetic word morgenlandisch have to travel through his mind?
+
+These things may be considered by many of slight importance, and that
+if they are wrong, they are not very easily remedied; but in
+architecture and costume we have the remedy in our own hands. Why--it
+may be asked in conclusion--do we cling to costume, and prize so much
+the old custom of distinctive dress? Because it bears upon its forehead
+the mark of truth; because, humble or noble, it is at least, what it
+appears to be; because it gives a silent but clear assurance (in these
+days so sadly needed) that a man's position in life is what he makes it
+appear to be; that, in short, there is nothing behind the scenes,
+nothing to be discovered or hunted out. It is the relic of a really
+'good old time,' when a uniform or a badge of office was a mark of
+honour, when the _bourgeoisie_ were proud of their simple estate, and
+domestic service was indeed what its name implies. We cling to costume
+and regret its disappearance, when (to use a familiar illustration) we
+compare the French _bonne_ in a white cap, with her English
+contemporary with a chignon and the airs of 'my lady.'
+
+But distinctive costumes, like the old buildings, are disappearing
+everywhere, and with them even the traditions seem to be dying out.
+Queen Matilda (we are soon to be told) _never worked the Bayeux
+Tapestry_, and Joan of Arc _was not burnt at Rouen_! The old world
+banners are being torn down one by one--facts which were landmarks in
+history are proved to be fiction by the Master of the Rolls; we close
+the page almost in despair, and with the words coming to our lips,
+'there is _nothing true_ under the sun.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_THE WATERING PLACES OF NORMANDY._
+
+     'Trouville est une double extrait de Paris--la vie est une fete, et
+     le costume une mascarade.'--_Conty._
+
+
+The watering-places of Normandy are so well known to English people that
+there is little that is new to be said respecting them; at the same time
+any description of this country would not be considered complete without
+some mention of the sea-coast.
+
+The principal bathing places on the north coast are the following,
+commencing from the east:--DIEPPE, FECAMP, ETRETAT, TROUVILLE
+and DEAUVILLE, VILLERS-SUR-MER, HOULGATE, CABOURG, and CHERBOURG.
+We will say a few words about Trouville and Etretat (as representative
+places) and conclude with some statistics, in an APPENDIX, which may
+be useful to travellers.
+
+Life at Trouville is the gayest of the gay: it is not so much to bathe
+that we come here, as because on this fine sandy shore near the mouth of
+the Seine, the world of fashion and delight has made its summer home;
+because here we can combine the refinements, pleasures, and
+'distractions' of Paris with northern breezes, and indulge without
+restraint in those rampant follies that only a Frenchman, or a
+Frenchwoman, understands. It is a pretty, graceful, and rational idea,
+no doubt, to combine the ball room with the sanatorium, and the opera
+with any amount of ozone; and we may well be thankful to Dumas for
+inventing a seaside resort at once so pleasant and so gay.
+
+Of the daily life at Trouville and Deauville there is literally nothing
+new to be told; they are the best, the most fashionable, and the most
+extravagant of French watering-places; and there is the usual round of
+bathing in the early morning, breakfast at half-past ten, donkey-riding,
+velocipede racing, and driving in the country until the afternoon,
+promenade concerts and in-door games at four, dinner at six or seven
+(table-d'hote, if you please, where new comers are stared at with that
+solid, stony stare, of which only the politest nation in the world, is
+capable)--casino afterwards, with pleasant, mixed society, concert again
+and '_la danse_.'
+
+Of the fashion and extravagance at Trouville a moralist might feel
+inclined to say much, but we are here for a summer holiday, and we
+_must_ be gay both in manner and attire. It is our business to be
+delighted with the varied scene of summer costume, and with all the
+bizarre combinations of colour that the beautiful Parisians try upon us;
+but it is impossible altogether to ignore the aspect of anxiety which
+the majority of people bring with them from Paris. They come
+'possessed,' (the demon is in those huge boxes, which have caused the
+death of so many poor _facteurs_, and which the railway pours out upon
+us, daily); they bring their burden of extravagance with them, they take
+it down to the beach, they plunge into the water with it, and come up
+burdened as before.
+
+_Dress_ is the one thing needful at Trouville--in the water, or on the
+sands. Look at that old French gentleman, with the cross of the Legion
+of Honour on his breast; he is neat and clean, his dress is, in all
+respects, perfection; and it is difficult to say whether it is the make
+of his boots, the fit of his gloves, or his hat, which is most on his
+mind--they furnish him with food for much thought, and sometimes
+trouble him not a little. Of the ladies' attire what shall we say? It is
+all described in the last number of '_Le Follet_,' and we will not
+attempt to compete with that authority; we will rather quote two lines
+from the letter of a young English lady, who thus writes home to quiet
+friends,--'We are all delighted with Trouville; we have to make _five
+toilettes daily_, the gentlemen are so particular.'
+
+Of the bathing at Trouville, a book might be written on the costumes
+alone--on the suits of motley, the harlequins, the mephistopheles, the
+spiders, the 'grasshoppers green,' and the other eccentric _costumes de
+bain_--culminating in a lady's dress trimmed with death's heads, and a
+gentleman's, of an indescribable colour, after the pattern of a trail of
+seaweed. Strange, costly creatures--popping in and out of little wooden
+houses, seated, solitary on artificial rocks, or pacing up and down
+within the limits prescribed by the keeper of the show--tell us,
+'Monsieur l'administrateur,' something about their habits; stick some
+labels into the sand with their Latin names, tell us how they manage to
+feather their nests, whether they 'ruminate' over their food--and we
+shall have added to our store of knowledge at the seaside!
+
+It is all admirably managed ('administered' is the word), as everything
+of the kind is in France. In order to bathe, as the French understand
+it, you must study costume, and to make a good appearance in the water
+you must move about with the dexterity and grace required in a ball
+room; you must remember that you are present at a _bal de mer_, and that
+you are not in a tub. There are water velocipedes, canoes for ladies,
+and floats for the unskilful; fresh water for the head before bathing,
+and tubs of hot water afterwards for the feet, on the sands; an
+appreciating and admiring audience on the shore; a lounge across the
+sands and through the 'Etablissement,' in costumes more scanty than
+those of Neapolitan fish girls!
+
+Yes, youth and beauty come to Trouville-by-the-sea; French beauty of the
+dresden china pattern, side by side and hand in hand, with the young
+English girl of the heavy Clapham type (which elderly Frenchmen
+adore)--all in the water together, in the prettiest dresses, 'sweetly
+trimmed' and daintily conceived; all joining hands, men and women having
+a 'merry go round' in the water--some swimming, some diving, shouting,
+and disporting themselves, and 'playing fantastic tricks before high
+heaven,'--to the admiration of a crowded beach.
+
+'_Honi soit qui mal y pense_,' when English ladies join the party, and
+write home that 'it is delightful, that there is a refreshing disregard
+for what people may think at French watering-places, and a charming
+absence of self-consciousness that disarms criticism'! What does quiet
+paterfamilias think about his mermaid daughter, and of that touch about
+the 'absence of self-consciousness;' and would anything induce _him_ to
+clothe himself in a light-green skin, to put on a pair of 'human fins,'
+or to perch himself on the rocks before a crowd of ladies on the beach,
+within a few yards of him? Yes, it _is_ delightful--the prettiest sight
+and the brightest life imaginable; but is it quite the thing, we may
+ask, for English girls to take their tone (ever so little) from the
+Casino, and from the '_Guides Conty;_' which they do as surely, as the
+caterpillar takes its colour from the leaf on which it feeds?
+
+But the system of bathing in France is so sensible and good compared
+with our own; the facilities for learning to swim, the accommodation for
+bathers, and the accessories, are so superior to anything we know of in
+England, that we hardly like to hint at any drawbacks. We need not all
+go to Trouville (some of us cannot afford it), but we may live at most
+of these bathing places at less cost, and with more comfort and
+amusement than at home. They do manage some things better in France: at
+the seaside here the men dress in suits of flannel, and wear light
+canvas shoes habitually; the women swim, and take their children with
+them into the water,--floating them with gourds, which accustoms them to
+the water, and to the use of their limbs. At the hotels and restaurants,
+they provide cheap and appetizing little dinners; there is plenty of ice
+in hot weather, and cooling drinks are to be had everywhere: in short,
+in these matters the practical common sense of the French people strikes
+us anew, every time we set foot on their shores. Why it should be so, we
+cannot answer; but as long as it is so, our countrymen and countrywomen
+may well crowd to French watering-places.
+
+The situation of Trouville is thus described by Blanchard Jerrold, who
+knows the district better than most Englishmen:--'Even the shore has
+been subdued to comfortable human uses; rocks have been picked out of
+the sand, until a carpet as smooth as Paris asphalte has been obtained
+for the fastidious feet of noble dames, who are the finishing bits of
+life and colour in the exquisite scene. Even the ribbed sand is not
+smooth enough; a boarded way has been fixed from the casino to the
+mussel banks, whither the dandy resorts to play at mussel gathering, in
+a nautical dress that costs a sailor's income. The great and rich have
+planted their Louis XIII. chateaux, their 'maisons mauresques' and
+'pavillons a la renaissance,' so closely over the available slopes,
+round about the immense and gaudily-appointed Casino, and the Hotel of
+the Black Rocks, that it has been found necessary to protect them with
+masonry of more than Roman strength. From these works of startling
+force, and boldness of design, the view is a glorious one indeed. To the
+right stretches the white line of Havre, pointed with its electric
+_phare_; to the left, the shore swells and dimples, and the hills, in
+gentle curves, rise beyond. Deauville is below, and beyond--a flat,
+formal place of fashion, where ladies exhibit the genius of Worth to one
+another, and to the astonished fishermen.
+
+Imagine a splendid court playing at seaside life; imagine such a place
+as Watteau would have designed, with inhabitants as elegantly rustic as
+his, and you imagine a Trouville. It is the village of the
+millionaire--the stage whereon the duchess plays the hoyden, and the
+princess seeks the exquisite relief of being natural for an hour or two.
+No wonder every inch of the rock is disputed; there are so many now in
+the world who have sipped all the pleasures the city has to give.
+Masters of the art of entering a drawing-room, the Parisians crowd
+seaward to get the sure foot of the mussel-gatherer upon the slimy
+granite of a bluff Norman headland; they bring their taste with them,
+and they get heartiness in the bracing air. The _salon_ of the casino,
+at the height of the season, is said to show at once the most animated
+and diverting assemblage of Somebodies to be seen in the world.'
+
+DEAUVILLE, separated only by the river Touques, is a place of
+greater pretension even than Trouville. It is, however, quite in its
+infancy; it was planned for a handsome and extensive watering-place, but
+the death of the Duc de Morny has stopped its growth,--large tracts of
+land, in what should be the town, still lying waste. It is quiet
+compared with Trouville, select and 'aristocratic,' and boasts the
+handsomest casino in France; it is built for the most part upon a sandy
+plain, but the houses are so tastefully designed, and so much has been
+made of the site, that (from some points of view) it presents, with its
+background of hills, a singularly picturesque appearance.
+
+No matter how small or uninteresting the locality, if it is to be
+fashionable, _il n'y aura point de difficulte_. If there are no natural
+attractions, the ingenious and enterprising speculator will provide
+them; if there are no trees, he will bring them,--no rocks, he will
+manufacture them,--no river, he will cut a winding canal,--no town, he
+will build one,--no casino, he will erect a wooden shed on the sands!
+
+But of all the bathing-places on the north coast of Normandy the little
+fishing-village of ETRETAT will commend itself most to English
+people, for its bold coast and bracing air. Situated about seventeen
+miles north-east of Havre, shut in on either side by rocks which form a
+natural arch over the sea, the little bay of Etretat--with its brilliant
+summer crowd of idlers and its little group of fishermen who stand by it
+in all weathers--is one of the quaintest of the nooks and corners of
+France.
+
+There is a homelike snugness and retirement about the position of
+Etretat, and a mystery about the caves and caverns--extending for long
+distances under its cliffs--which form an attraction that we shall find
+nowhere else. Since Paris has found it out, and taken it by storm as it
+were, the little fishermen's village has been turned into a gay
+_parterre_; its shingly beach lined with chairs _a volonte_, and its
+shores smoothed and levelled for delicate feet. The _Casino_ and the
+_Etablissement_ are all that can be desired; whilst pretty chalets and
+villas are scattered upon the hills that surround the town. There is
+scarcely any 'town' to speak of; a small straggling village, with the
+remains of a Norman church, once close to the sea (built on the spot
+where the people once watched the great flotilla of William the
+Conqueror drift eastward to St. Valery), and on the shore, old worn-out
+boats, thatched and turned into fishermen's huts and bathing retreats.
+
+Etretat has its peculiar customs; the old fisher-women, who assume the
+more profitable occupation of washerwomen during the summer, go down to
+the shore as the tide is ebbing, and catch the spring water on its way
+to the sea; scooping out the stones, and making natural washing-tubs of
+fresh water close to the sea--a work of ten minutes or so, which is all
+washed away by the next tide. At Etretat almost everybody swims and
+wears a costume of blue serge, trimmed with scarlet, or other bright
+colour; and everybody sits in the afternoon in the gay little bay,
+purchases shell ornaments and useless souvenirs, sips coffee or ices,
+and listens to the band. For a very little place, without a railway, and
+with only two good hotels, Etretat is wonderfully lively and attractive;
+and the drives in the neighbourhood add to its natural attractions.
+
+The show is nearly over for the season, at Etretat, by the time we leave
+it; the puppets are being packed up for Paris, and even the boxes that
+contained them will soon be carted away to more sheltered places. It is
+late in September, and the last few bathers are making the most of their
+time, and wandering about on the sands in their most brilliant attire;
+but their time is nearly over, Etretat will soon be given up to the
+fishermen again--like the bears in the high Pyrenees, that wait at the
+street corners of the mountain towns, and scramble for the best places
+after the visitors have left, the natives of Etretat are already
+preparing to return to their winter quarters.
+
+It is the finest weather of the year, and the setting sun is brilliant
+upon the shore; a fishing-boat glides into the bay, and a little
+fisher-boy steps out upon the sands. He comes down towards us, facing
+the western sun, with such a glory of light about his head, such a halo
+of fresh youth, and health, as we have not seen once this summer, in the
+'great world.' His feet are bare, and leave their tiny impress on the
+sand--a thousand times more expressive than any Parisian boot; his
+little bronzed hands are crystallized with the salt air; his dark-brown
+curls are flecked with sea-foam, and flutter in the evening breeze; his
+face is radiant--a reflection of the sun, a mystery of life and beauty
+half revealed.
+
+After all we have seen and heard around us, it is like turning, with a
+thankful sense of rest, from the contemplation of some tricky effect of
+colour, to a painting by Titian or Velasquez; it is, in an artistic
+sense, transition from darkness to light--from the glare of the lamp to
+the glory of the true day.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX TO NORMANDY PICTURESQUE.
+
+Sketch of Route, showing the Distances, Fares, &c., to and from the
+principal Places in Normandy.
+
+
+TRAVELLING EXPENSES over the whole of this Route (including the
+journey from London to Havre, or Dieppe, and back) do not amount to more
+than 4l. 4s. first class, and need not exceed 3l. 10s. (see p.
+240). HOTEL EXPENSES average about 10s. a day.
+
+Thus it is possible to accomplish month's tour for L20, and one of two
+months for L35.
+
+There are _no good hotels_ in Normandy (excepting at the seaside)
+according to modern ideas of comfort and convenience. CAEN,
+AVRANCHES, and ROUEN may be mentioned as the best places
+at which to stay, _en route_.
+
+Havre to Pont Audemer.--Steamboat direct.--Fare 2frs. Or via Honfleur
+or Trouville, by boat and diligence.
+
+Dieppe to Pont Audemer.--Railway (via Rouen and Glosmontfort) 65
+miles. Fare, first class, 12frs. 50c. (10s.)
+
+PONT AUDEMER (Pop. 6000). Hotels: _Pot d'Etain_ (old-fashioned in
+style, but no longer in prices); _Lion d'Or_.
+
+Pont Audemer to Lisieux.--Diligence. Distance, 22 miles.--Or by Ry. 43
+miles; fare, 8frs. 50c. (7s.) Fare.[64]
+
+LISIEUX (Pop. 13,000). Hotels: _de France_, (on a quiet boulevard,
+with garden); _d'Espagne_, &c.
+
+Lisieux to Caen.--Railway, 30 miles. Fare, 5frs. 50c. (4s. 6d.)
+
+CAEN (Pop. 44,000). Hotels: _d'Angleterre_, (well-managed, central,
+and bustling); _d'Espagne_, &c.
+
+Caen to Bayeux.--Railway, 19 miles. Fare, 3frs. 40c. (2s. 9d.)
+
+BAYEUX (Pop. 9,500). Hotels: _du Luxembourg, Grand Hotel_, &c.
+
+
+  Bayeux to St. Lo.--Railway 28 miles. Fare, 5frs. (4s.)
+
+    [Bayeux to Cherbourg. Rly. 63 miles. Fare, 11frs. 40s. (9s. 6d.)]
+
+      [For Hotels, &c., see App., p. iv.]
+
+        ST. LO (Pop. 10,000). Hotel: _du Soleil
+          Levant_ (quiet and commercial.)
+
+  St. Lo to Coutances.--Diligence, 16 miles.
+
+        COUTANCES (Pop. 9000). Hotels: _de
+        France, du Dauphin, &c._ (indifferent).
+
+  Coutances to Granville.--Diligence, 18 miles.
+
+        GRANVILLE (Pop. 17,000). Hotels: _du
+        Nord_ (large and bustling, crowded with
+        English from the Channel Islands);
+        _Trois Couronnes, &c._ (See p. 123.)
+
+  Granville to Avranches.--Diligence, 16 miles.
+
+        AVRANCHES (Pop. 9000). Hotels: _d'Angleterre,
+        de Bretagne, &c._ (accustomed
+        to English people.)
+
+    [Excursion to Mont St. Michel and back in one day; Carriage,
+    15frs, (12s. 6d.). Distance, 10 miles; or by Pont Orson
+    (the best route), 13 miles.]
+
+  Avranches to Vire.--Diligence, 36 miles (via Mortain).
+
+        VIRE (Pop. 8000). Hotel: _du Cheval
+        Blanc_.
+
+    [Mortain to Domfront. Diligence, 17 miles. (Pop. 3000.)
+    _Hotel de la Poste_.]
+
+  Vire to Falaise.--Diligence, 34 miles [or by Rly. 65 miles.
+  Fare, 12frs. (9s. 9d.)]
+
+        FALAISE (Pop. 9000). Hotels: _de Normandie,
+        &c._ (All commercial.)
+
+  Falaise to Rouen.--Rly. 83 miles (via Mezidon and Serquiny).
+  Fare, 15frs. 50c. (12s. 6d.)
+
+    [At Serquiny turn off to Evreux, 26 miles. Fare from Serquiny,
+    4frs. 60c. (3s. 9d.) Hotel: _Grand Cerf_.]
+
+        ROUEN (Pop. 103,000). Hotels: _d'Angleterre,
+        d'Albion, &c._ (none first-rate,
+        generally full of English people.)
+
+  Rouen to Havre by the Seine; or by Rly.
+
+
+
+
+_List of the_ WATERING-PLACES OF NORMANDY, _from east to west,
+with a few notes for Visitors_.
+
+Dieppe (Pop. 20,000).--Busy seaport town--fashionable and expensive
+     during the season--good accommodation facing the sea--pretty rides
+     and drives in the neighbourhood--shingly beach, bracing air.
+
+HOTELS: _Royal, des Bains, de Londres, &c.      Ry. to Paris._
+
+Fecamp (13,000).--A dull uninteresting town, inns second-rate and
+     dear, in summer--situated on a river, the town reaching for nearly
+     a mile inland.
+
+HOTELS: _de la Plage, des Bains, Chariot d'Or.      Ry. to Paris._
+
+Etretat (2000).--Romantic situation--bracing air--rocky coast--shingly
+     beach--only two good hotels--a few villas and apartments--no
+     town--very amusing for a time.
+
+HOTELS: _Blanquet, Hauville, Dil. to Fecamp, and Havre._
+
+Havre (75,000).--Large and important seaport on the right bank of the
+     Seine--harbour, docks, warehouses, fine modern buildings, streets,
+     and squares--picturesque old houses and fishing-boats on the
+     quay--bathing not equal to Dieppe or Trouville.
+
+HOTELS: _de l'Europe, de l'Amiraute, &c., and Frascati's on the
+     sea-shore. Ry. to Paris; Steamboats to Trouville, &c._
+
+Honfleur (10,000).--Opposite Havre, on the Seine--old and picturesque
+     town--pleasant walks--English society--sea-bathing, "_mais quels
+     bains_," says Conty, "_bains impossible!_" Living is not dear for
+     residents.
+
+HOTELS: _du Cheval Blanc, de la Paix, &c.      Ry. to Paris_.
+
+Trouville (5000 or 6000).--Fashionable and very dear at the best
+     hotels--ample accommodation to suit all purses--good
+     sands--splendid casino--handsome villas, and plenty of apartments.
+     Less bracing than Dieppe or Etretat.
+
+HOTELS: _Roches-Noires, Paris, Bras d'Or, &c.      Ry. to Paris._
+
+Deauville.--A scattered assemblage of villas and picturesque
+     houses--very exclusive and select, and dull for a stranger--grand
+     casino--quite a modern town--separated from Trouville by the river
+     Touques.
+
+HOTELS: _Grand, du Casino, &c.      Ry. to Paris._
+
+Villers-sur-mer.--A pretty village, six miles from Trouville--crowded
+     during the season--beautiful neighbourhood--good apartments, but
+     expensive--inns moderate.
+
+HOTELS: _du Bras d'Or, Casino, &c.      Ry. to Paris._
+
+Houlgate.--One large hotel surrounded by pretty and well-built chalets
+     to be let furnished; also many private villas in gardens--beautiful
+     situation--good sands--small Casino--becoming fashionable and
+     dear--accommodation limited. _Dil. to Trouville, 11 miles_.
+
+Beuzeval.--A continuation of Houlgate, westward; lower, near the mouth
+     of the Dives--one second-rate hotel close to the sands--quiet and
+     reasonable--sea recedes half-a-mile (no boating at Houlgate or
+     Beuzeval)--beautiful neighbourhood--a few villas and apartments--no
+     Etablissement.       _Dil. to Trouville or Caen_.
+
+Cabourg.--A small, but increasing, town in a fine open situation on
+     the left bank of the Dives--good accommodation and moderate--not as
+     well known as it deserves to be. HOTELS: _de la Plage,
+     Casino, &c.      Dil. do. do_.
+
+[Then follow nine or ten minor sea-bathing places, situated north of
+Caen and Bayeux, in the following order:--Lies, Luc, Lasgrune, St,
+Aubin, Coutances, Aromanches, Auxelles, Vierville, and Grandcamp;
+where accommodation is more or less limited, and board and lodging need
+not cost more than seven or eight francs a-day in the season. They are
+generally spoken of in French guide-books as, '_bien tristes sans
+ressources;_' 'fit only for fathers of families'! St. Aubin, about
+twelve miles from Caen, is one of the best.]
+
+  Cherbourg (42,000).--Large, fortified town--bold coast--good
+    bathing--splendid views from the heights--wide
+    streets and squares--docks and harbours--hotels--good
+    and dear.
+    HOTELS: _l'Univers, l'Amiraute, &c.      Ry. to Paris_.
+
+  Granville.--See pp. 122 and following; also Appendix, p. ii.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The average charge at seaside hotels in Normandy, during the season (if
+taken by the week) is 8 or 9 francs a-day, for sleeping accommodation
+and the two public meals; nearly everything else being charged for
+'extra.' At Trouville, Deauville, and Dieppe, 10 or 12 francs is
+considered 'moderate.' Furnished houses and apartments can be had nearly
+everywhere, and at all prices. The sum of 10_l._ or 15_l_. a week is
+sometimes paid at Trouville, or Deauville, for a furnished house.
+Conty's guide-book, '_Les Cotes de Normandie_,' should be recommended
+for its very practical information on these matters, but not for its
+illustrations.
+
+_London, May, 1870._
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] We have not put CHERBOURG, DOMFRONT, or EVREAUX, as a matter of
+course, on our list, although they should be included in a tour,
+especially the two latter towns, for their archaeological interest.
+
+[2] The same remark applies to Mantes, familiar to us from its
+historical associations, and by its graceful towers, which so many have
+seen from the railway in going to Paris. "All the world goes by Mantes,
+but very few stop there," writes a traveller. "The tourist, on his way
+to Paris, generally has a ticket which allows him to stop at Rouen but
+not at Mantes. People very anxious to stop at Mantes, and to muse, so to
+speak, amongst its embers, have had great searchings of heart how to get
+there, and have not accomplished their object until after some years of
+reflection."
+
+[3] Trouville and Deauville-sur-mer.
+
+[4] The architecture of Rouen, which is better known to our countrymen
+than that of any other town in Normandy, is later than that of Caen or
+Bayeux. Notwithstanding the magnificence of its cathedral, we venture to
+say that there is nothing in all Rouen to compare with the norman
+romanesque of the latter towns.
+
+[5] 'I am not enthusiastic about gutters and gables, and object to a
+population composed exclusively of old women,' wrote the author of 'Miss
+Carew;' but she could not have seen Pont Audemer.
+
+[6] The brightness and cleanliness of the peasant and market-women, is a
+pleasant feature to notice in Normandy.
+
+[7] It is worthy of note that the very variety and irregularity that
+attracts us so much in these buildings does not meet with universal
+approval in the French schools. In the _'Grammaire des Arts du Dessin_,'
+M. Charles Blanc lays down as an axiom, that "sublimity in architecture
+belongs to three essential conditions--simplicity of surface,
+straightness, and continuity of line." Nevertheless we find many modern
+French houses built in the style of the 13th and 14th century;
+especially in Lower Normandy.
+
+[8] There is a great change in the aspect of Pont Audemer during the
+last year or two; streets of new houses having sprung up, hiding some of
+the best old work from view; and one whole street of wooden houses
+having been lately taken down.
+
+[9] There is one peculiarity about the position of Pont Audemer which is
+charming to an artist; the streets are ended by hills and green slopes,
+clothed to their summits with trees, which are often in sunshine, whilst
+the town is in shadow.
+
+[10] We, human creatures, little know what high revel is held at four
+o'clock on a summer's morning, by the birds of the air and the beasts of
+the field; when their tormentors are asleep.
+
+[11] The approach to Lisieux from the railway station is singularly
+uninteresting; a new town of common red brick houses, of the Coventry or
+Birmingham pattern, having lately sprung up in this quarter.
+
+[12] There is something not inappropriate, in the printed letters in
+present use in France, to the 'Haussmann' style of street architecture;
+some inscriptions over warehouses and shops could scarcely indeed be
+improved. We might point as an illustration of our meaning to the
+successful introduction of the word NORD, several times repeated, on the
+facade of the terminus of the Great Northern Railway at Paris.
+
+[13] We lately saw an english crest, bearing the motto "Courage without
+fear;" a piece of tautology, surely of modern manufacturer?
+
+[14] The contrast between the present and former states of society might
+be typified by the general substitution of the screw for the nail in
+building; both answering the purpose of the modern builder, but the
+former preferred, because _removable_ at pleasure.
+
+It is a restless age, in which advertisements of 'FAMILIES REMOVED' are
+pasted on the walls of a man's house without appearing to excite his
+indignation.
+
+[15] The 'renaissance' work at the east end of this church is considered
+by Herr Luebke to be 'the masterpiece of the epoch.' 'It is to be found,'
+he says, 'at one extremity of a building, the other end of which is
+occupied by the loveliest steeple and tower in the world.'
+
+[16] It is remarkable that with all their care for this building, the
+authorities should permit apple-stalls and wooden sheds to be built up
+against the tower.
+
+[17] An architect, speaking of the Albert Memorial, now approaching
+completion, says:--'In ten years the spire and all its elaborate tracery
+will have become obsolete and effaced for all artistic purposes. The
+atmosphere of London will have performed its inevitable function. Every
+'scroll work' and 'pinnacle' will be a mere clot of soot, and the bronze
+gilt Virtues will represent nothing but swarthy denizens of the lower
+regions; the plumage of the angels will be converted into a sort of
+black-and-white check-work. 'All this fated transformation we see with
+the mind's eye as plainly as we see with those of the body, the similar
+change which has been effected in the Gothic tracery of some of our
+latest churches.'
+
+[18] The old woman is well known at Caen, and her encounter with the
+'_garcon anglais_' it matter of history amongst her friends in the town.
+
+[19] It was lately found necessary to repair the south door; but the
+restoration of the carved work has been effected with the utmost skill
+and care: indeed we could hardly point to a more successful instance of
+'restoring' in France.
+
+[20] We might point, as a notable exception, to the memorial window to
+Brunel, the engineer, in Westminster Abbey; especially for its
+appropriateness and harmony with the building.
+
+[21] The _raconteurs_ of the middle ages used to travel on foot about
+Europe, reciting, or repeating, the last new work or conversation of
+celebrated men--a useful and lucrative profession in days before
+printing was invented.
+
+[22] In the British Museum there is a book containing a facsimile of the
+whole of this tapestry (printed in colours, for the Society of
+Antiquaries), where the reader may see it almost as well as at Bayeux;
+just as, at the Crystal Palace, we may examine the modelling of
+Ghiberti's gates, with greater facility than by standing in the windy
+streets of Florence.
+
+[23] The sketch of the pulpit (made on the spot by the author) is
+erroneously stated in the List of Illustrations to be from a photograph.
+
+[24] At the cathedral at Coutances the service is held under the great
+tower, and the effect is most melodious from above.
+
+[25] In an article in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, on the 'woman of the
+future,' the writer argues that:--'As beauty is more or less a matter of
+health, too much can never be said against the abuse of it. Quite
+naturally the fragile type of beauty has become the standard of the
+present day, and men admire in real lift the lily-cheeked,
+small-waisted, diaphanous-looking creatures idealized by living artists.
+When we become accustomed to a nobler kind of beauty we shall attain to
+a loftier ideal. Men will seek nobility rather than prettiness, strength
+rather than weakness, physical perfection rather than physical
+degeneracy, in the women they select as mothers of their children.
+Artists will rejoice and sculptors will cease to despair when this happy
+consummation is reached--let none regard it as chimerical or Utopian.'
+
+[26] The railway from Paris to Granville is nearly finished; and another
+line is in progress to connect Cherbourg, Coutances, Granville, and St.
+Malo.
+
+[27] If this were the place to enlarge upon the general question of
+bringing children abroad to be educated, we might suggest, at the
+outset, that there were certain English qualities, such as manliness and
+self-reliance; and certain English sports, such as cricket, hunting and
+the like, which have less opportunity of fair development in boys
+educated abroad. And as to girls--who knows the impression left for life
+on young hearts, by the dead walls and silent trees of a French
+_pension_?
+
+[28] It is well that sportsmen do not always make a good bag, for
+another drawback to the pleasures of sport in France is the 'heavy
+octroi duty which a successful shot has to pay upon every head of game
+which he takes back to town.' For a pheasant (according to the latest
+accounts) he has to pay '3f. 50c. to 4f.; for a hare, 1f. 50c. to 2f.;
+for a rabbit, 75c. to 1f. 25c.; for a partridge, 75c. to 1f. 50c. the
+pound; and for every other species of feathered game, 18c. the
+kilogramme.'
+
+[29] The island, in this illustration, appears, after engraving, to be
+about two miles nearer the spectator, and to be less covered with
+houses, than it really is.
+
+[30] During the last few years the prisoners have all been removed from
+Mont St. Michael.
+
+[31] The sands are so shifting and variable, that it is impossible to
+cross with safety, excepting by well-known routes, and at certain times
+of the tide; many lives, even of the fishermen and women, have been lost
+on these sands.
+
+[32] It a irresistible, here, not to compare in our minds, with these
+twelfth-century relics of magnificence and festivity, certain emblazoned
+'civic banquets,' and the gay 'halls by the sea,' with which the child
+(old or young) of the nineteenth century is enraptured--the former being
+the realities of a chivalrous epoch; the latter, masquerades or money
+speculations, of a more advanced century. The comparison may be
+considered unjust, but it is one that suggests itself again and again,
+as typical of a curiously altered state of society and manners.
+
+[33] The latest, and perhaps the most complete, description of Mont St
+Michael, will be found in the 'People's Magazine' for August, 1869.
+
+[34] French artists flock together in the valleys of the Seine and the
+Somme, like English landscape painters at the junction of the Greta and
+the Tees--Mortain and Vire not being yet fashionable. It is hard,
+indeed, to get English artists out of a groove; to those who, like
+ourselves, have had to examine the pictures at our annual Exhibitions,
+year by year, somewhat closely, the streams in Wales are as familiar on
+canvas, as 'Finding the Body of Harold.'
+
+[35] We speak of Mortain as we found it a few years ago; its sanitory
+arrangements have, we understand, been improved, but people are not yet
+enthusiastic about Mortain as a residence.
+
+[36] Notwithstanding this apparent indifference to landscape, we
+remember finding at a country inn, the walls covered with one of
+Troyon's pictures (a hundred times repeated in paper-hanging); a pretty
+pastoral scene which Messrs. Christie would have catalogued as 'a
+landscape with cattle.'
+
+[37] The neatness and precision with which they make their piles of
+stones at the roadside will be remembered by many a traveller in this
+part of Normandy. They accomplish it by putting the stones into a shape
+(as if making a jelly), and removing the boards when full; and, as there
+are no French boys, the loose pile remains undisturbed for months.
+
+[38] Submitting to the exigencies of publishing expediency, we have been
+unable to have this drawing reproduced on wood; although we were anxious
+to draw attention to the bold forms of rocks which crown these heights,
+and to the line old trees which surround the castle.
+
+[39] There are' deeds of valour' (according to the _affiches_) to be
+witnessed in these days at Falaise; we once saw a woman here, in a
+circus, turning somersaults on horseback before a crowd of spectators.
+The people of Falaise cannot be accused of being behind the age; one
+gentleman advertises as his _specialite_,' the cure of injuries caused
+by velocipedes'!
+
+[40] Our peaceful proclivities may be noticed in small things; the
+fierce and warlike devices, such as an eagle's head, a lion _rampant_,
+and the like, which were originally designed to stimulate the warrior in
+battle, now serve to adorn the panel of a carriage, or a sheet of
+note-paper.
+
+[41] It is rather a curious fact that Prout, notwithstanding his love
+for historic scenes, seems to have had little sympathy with the poor
+'Maid of Orleans.' In a letter which accompanied the presentation of
+this drawing, the following passage occurs:--'I beg your acceptance of
+what is miserable, though perhaps not uninteresting, as it is part of
+the house in which Joan of Arc was confined at Rouen, and before which
+the English, _very wisely_, burnt her for a witch!'
+
+Mr. Prout evidently differed in opinion from Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of
+Bauvais, who presided at the tribunal which condemned Joan of Arc to
+death; for he founded a Lady Chapel at Lisieux, 'in expiation of his
+false judgment of an innocent woman.'
+
+[42] It is curious to note that the wealth of cities nearly always flow
+westward,--converting, as in London, the market-gardens of the poor into
+the 'Palace Gardens' of the rich; and, with steady advance, sweeps away
+our landmarks,--turning the gravel pits of western London into the
+decorum of a Ladbroke-square.
+
+[43] It is no new remark that more than one Englishman of artistic taste
+has returned to Rouen after visiting the buildings of Paris, having
+found nothing equal in grandeur to this cathedral, and the church of St.
+Ouen.
+
+[44] The original spire was made of wood, and much more picturesque; our
+artist evidently could not bring himself to copy with literal truth this
+disfiguring element to the building.
+
+[45] For a detailed description of the monuments in this Cathedral, and
+of the church of St. Ouen, we cannot do better than refer the reader to
+the very accurate account in Murray's 'Handbook;' and also to Cassell's
+'Normandy,' from which we have made the above extracts.
+
+[46] We must record an exception to this rule, in the case of the church
+at Dives, which a kept closely locked, under the care of an old woman.
+
+[47] Just as the words of our Baptismal service, enrolling a young child
+into the 'church militant,' lose half their effect when addressed to men
+whose ideas of manliness and fighting fall very short of their true
+meaning.
+
+It has a strange sound (to say the least that could be said) to hear
+quiet town-bred godfathers promise that they will 'take care' that a
+child shall 'fight under the banner' of the cross, and 'continue
+Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end;' and it is
+almost as strange to hear the good Bishop Heber's warlike imagery--'His
+blood-red banner streams afar; who follows in his train?' &c., &c.--in
+the mouths of little children.
+
+[48] The incongruity strikes one more when we see him afterwards in the
+town, marching along with a flat-footed shambling tread, holding an
+umbrella in front of him in his clenched fist (as all french priests
+hold it),--a figure as unromantic-looking as ungraceful.
+
+[49] He could not be called naturally gifted, even in the matter of
+speaking; but he had been well taught from his youth up, both the manner
+and the method of fixing the attention of his hearers.
+
+[50] On the quay at the front of the Hotel d'Angleterre, the public
+seats under the trees are crowded with people in the afternoon,
+especially of the poor and working classes.
+
+[51] There seem to be few living French artists of genius, who devote
+themselves to landscape painting; when we have mentioned the names of
+Troyon, Lambinet, Lamoriniere and Auguste Bonheur, we have almost
+exhausted the list.
+
+[52] It is unfortunately different in the case of the inhabitants of the
+neighbourhood of Fecamp and Etretat, who are certainly not improved,
+either in manners or morals, by the fashionable invasion of their
+province.
+
+[53] The London 'Illustrated Police News.'
+
+[54] The people in this part of Normandy are becoming less political,
+and more conservative, every day (a conservatism which, in their case,
+may be taken as a sign of prosperity, and of a certain unwillingness to
+be disturbed in their business); they are content with a paternal
+government--at a distance; they wish for peace and order, and have no
+objection to be taken care of. They are so willing to be led that, as a
+Frenchman expressed it to us, 'they would almost prefer, if they could,
+to have an omnipotent Postmaster-General to inspect all letters, and see
+whether they were creditable to the sender and fitting to be received'!
+
+[55] In the matter of bells, the same voices now ring half over
+Europe--the music is the same at Bruges as at Birmingham; church bells
+being made wholesale, to the same pattern and in the same mould, another
+link in the chain of old associations, is broken.
+
+[56] We are tempted to remark, in passing, on the curious want of manner
+in speaking French that we notice amongst English people abroad;
+arising, probably, from their method of learning it. French people have
+often expressed to us their astonishment at this defect, amongst so many
+educated English women; a defect which, according to the same authority,
+is less prominent amongst travelled Englishmen in the same position in
+life. We will not venture to give an opinion upon the latter point; but
+most of us have yet to learn that there are two French languages--one
+for writing and one for speaking; and that the latter is almost made up
+of _manner_, and depends upon the modulation of the voice.
+
+[57] It is worthy of note that, in a cruel country like France, the
+'blinkers' to the horses (which we are doing away with in England) are a
+most merciful provision against the driver's brutality; and a security
+to the traveller, against his habitual carelessness.
+
+[58] We confess to a lively sympathy with the growth of artistic taste
+in America; a sympathy not diminished by the knowledge that every
+English work of credit on these subjects is eagerly bought and read by
+the people.
+
+[59] The carving may be machine-made, and the slate and fringes to the
+roofs cut by steam; but we must remember that these houses are only 'run
+up to let,' as it is called, some of them costing not more than 500_l._
+or 600l.
+
+[60] It is interesting to note how the changes in the modern systems of
+warfare seem to be tending (both in attack and defence) to a more
+practical and picturesque state of things. Thus in attack, the top boots
+and loose costume of the engineers and sappers figure more conspicuously
+in these days, than the smooth broad-cloth of the troops of the line;
+and in defence (thanks to Captain Moncreiff's system), we are promised
+guns that shall be concealed in the long grass of our southern downs,
+whilst stone and brick fortifications need no longer desolate the
+heights.
+
+[61] In one of the west-end clubs a fresco has lately been exhibited as
+a suggestion to the members, shewing the easy and graceful costume of
+the fifteenth century.
+
+[62] If the words in an ordinary letter in a lady's handwriting, were
+measured, it would be found that the point of the pen had passed over a
+distance of twenty or thirty feet.
+
+[63] We are becoming so accustomed to the deliberate misuse of words,
+that when a person (in London) informs us that he is going 'to dine at
+the pallis,' we understand him at once to mean that he if going to spend
+the day at the great glass bazaar at Sydenham.
+
+[64] The fares by Diligence are not inserted because they are liable to
+variation; but the traveller may safely calculate them, at not more than
+2d. a mile for the best places, All _railway fares_ stated are _first
+class_.
+
+
+
+
+_Books by the same Author.
+
+'ARTISTS AND ARABS.'
+
+'TRAVELLING IN SPAIN.'
+
+'THE PYRENEES.'_
+
+
+_Published by Sampson Low and Co.,
+
+Crown Buildings, Fleet Street, London._
+
+_Crown 8vo._, 10s. 6d.
+
+
+ARTISTS AND ARABS;
+
+OR,
+
+Sketching in Sunshine.
+
+
+"Let us sit down here quietly for one day and paint a camel's head, not
+flinching from the work, but mastering the wonderful texture and
+shagginess of his thick coat or mane, its massive beauty, and its
+infinite gradations of colour.
+
+"Such a sitter no portrait painter ever had in England. Feed him up
+first, get a boy to keep the flies from him, and he will remain almost
+immoveable through the day. He will put on a sad expression in the
+morning which will not change; he will give no trouble whatever, he will
+but sit still and croak."--Chap. IV., '_Our Models_.'
+
+
+WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+
+Opinions of the Press on "Artists and Arabs."
+
+
+_'"Artists and Arabs" is a fanciful name for a clever book, of which the
+figures are Oriental, and the sceneries Algerian. It is full of air and
+light, and its style is laden, so to speak, with a sense of unutterable
+freedom and enjoyment; a book which would remind us, not of the article
+on Algeria in a gazetteer, but of Turner's picture of a sunrise on the
+African coast.'_--Athenaeum.
+
+_'The lesson which Mr. Blackburn sets himself to impress upon his
+readers, is certainly in accordance with common sense. The first need of
+the painter is an educated eye, and to obtain this he must consent to
+undergo systematic training. He is in the position of a man who is
+learning a language merely from his books, with nothing to recall its
+accents in the daily life around him. If he will listen to Mr. Blackburn
+he may get rid of all these uncongenial surroundings.'_--Saturday
+Review.
+
+_'This it a particularly pretty boor, containing many exquisite
+illustrations and vignettes. Mr. Blackburn's style is occasionally
+essentially poetical, while his descriptions of mountain and valley,
+of sea and sky, of sunshine and storm, are vivid and
+picturesque.'_--Examiner.
+
+_'Mr. Blackburn is an artist in words, and can paint a picture in a
+paragraph. He delights in the beauty of form and colour, in the perfume
+of flowers, in the freedom of the desert, in the brilliant glow and
+delicious warmth of a southern atmosphere.'_--Spectator.
+
+_'This is a genuine book, full of character and trustworthiness. The
+woodcuts, with which it is liberally embellished, are excellent, and
+bear upon them the stamp of truth to the scenes and incidents they are
+intended to represent. Mr. Blackburn's views of art are singularly
+unsophisticated and manly.'_--Leader.
+
+_'Interesting as are Mr. Blackburn's ascriptions of Algiers, we almost
+prefer those of the country beyond it. His sketches of the little Arab
+village, called the Bouzareah, and of the storm that overtook him there,
+are in the best style of descriptive writing.'_--London Review.
+
+_'Mr. Blackburn is an artist and a lover of nature, and he pretends to
+nothing more in these gay and pleasing pages.'_--Daily News.
+
+_'Since the days of Eoethen, we have not met with so lively, racy,
+gossiping, and intellectual a book as this.'_--News of the World.
+
+_'The reader feels, that in perusing the pages of "Artists and Arabs,"
+he has had a glimpse of sunshine more intense than any ever seen in
+cloudy England.'_--The Queen.
+
+_'The narrative is told with a commendable simplicity and absence of
+self display, or self boasting; and the illustrations are worthy the
+fame of a reputable British artist.'_--Press.
+
+_'The sparkling picturesqueness of the style of this book is combined
+with sound sense, and strong argument, when the author pleads the claims
+and the beauties of realism in art; and though addressed to artists, the
+volume is one of that most attractive which hat been set before the
+general reader of late.'_--Contemporary Review.
+
+_&c. &c. &c._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Second Edition, Crown 8vo., Six Shillings.
+
+TRAVELLING IN SPAIN
+
+In the Present Day.
+
+WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATION'S
+
+By THE LATE John Phillip, R.A., E. LUNDGREN, WALTER SEVERN,
+AND THE AUTHOR.
+
+ALSO, A NEW MAP OF SPAIN, AND AN APPENDIX OF ROUTES.
+
+
+Opinions of the Press on "Travelling in Spain."
+
+_'This pleasant volume, dedicated to the Right Hon. E. Horsman, M.P., by
+his late private secretary, admirably fulfils its author's design, which
+was "to record simply and easily, the observations of ordinary English
+travelers visiting the principal cities of Spain." The travellers whose
+adventures are here recorded were, however, something more than ordinary
+observers. Some artists being of the party, have given graceful evidence
+of their observations in some spiritedly sketches of Spanish scenes and
+Spanish life. There are no less than nineteen of these illustrations,
+some by John Phillip, R.A.; and the ornaments at the beginning and close
+of each chapter are fac-similes of embroideries brought from Granada.
+The whole volume, in its getting up and appearance, is most attractive;
+and the descriptions of Spanish men and women are singularly
+interesting._
+
+_'At the end there is an_ APPENDIX OF ROUTES, &c., _which will
+be invaluable to all intending travellers in Spain.'_--Sun.
+
+_'Mr. Blackburn's charming volume is on a different principle from that
+of Irving and Cayley. He does not aspire to present Spain as it affected
+him,--but Spain as it is. His travelling party consisted of two ladies
+and two gentlemen--an arrangement fatal to romance. To go out on a
+serenading adventure in wicked Madrid is quite impossible for Mr.
+Horsman's ex-private secretary, having in charge two English gentlemen.
+So Mr. Blackburn wisely did not go in for adventures, but preferred to
+describe in straightforward fashion what he saw, so as to guide others
+who may feel disposed for Spanish travel--and he describes capitally. He
+saw a couple of bull-fights, one at Madrid and one at Seville, and
+brings them before his readers in a very vigorous style. He has
+admirably succeeded in sketching the special character in each of the
+cities that he visited. The book is illustrated by several well-known
+hands.'_--Press.
+
+_'A delightful book is Mr. Blackburn's volume upon "Travelling in
+Spain." Its artistic appearance is a credit to the publishers as well as
+to the author. The pictures are of the best, and so is the text, which
+gives a very clear and practical account of Spanish travel, that is
+unaffectedly lively, and full of shrewd and accurate notes upon Spanish
+character.'_--Examiner.
+
+_'Mr. Blackburn sketches the aspect of the streets with considerable
+humour, and with a correctness which will be admitted by all who have
+basked in the sunshine of the Puerta del Sol.'_--Pall Mall Gazette.
+
+_'The writer has genuine humour, and a light and graceful style, which
+carries the reader through the notes with increasing relish.'_--Public
+Opinion.
+
+_'Extremely readable,--a lively picture of Spain as it is.'_--London
+Review.
+
+_'A truthful and pleasant record of the adventures of a party of ladies
+and gentlemen--an accomplished and artistic little company of
+friends.'_--Era.
+
+_'This unpretending but practical volume is very
+readable.'_--Standard.
+
+_'Not only to be admired, but read.'_--Illustrated London News.
+
+_'A lively and interesting sketch of a journey through
+Spain.'_--Builder.
+
+_'Very useful as well as entertaining.'_--Observer.
+
+_'A most amusing book, profusely illustrated.'_--John Bull.
+
+_'The dullest of books--a thing of shreds and patches.'_--Morning
+Star.
+
+_Royal 8vo._ (_cloth_ 18_s._, _or morocco_ 24_s._)
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE PYRENEES
+
+_With One Hundred Illustrations by_ GUSTAVE DORE.
+
+
+Opinions of the Press on "The Pyrenees."
+
+_'This handsome volume will confirm the opinion of those who hold that
+M. Dore's real strength lies in landscape. Mr. Blackburn's share in the
+work is pleasant and readable, and is really what it pretends to be, a
+description of summer life at French watering-places. It is a_ bona fide
+_record of his own experiences, told without either that abominable
+smartness, or that dismal book-making, which are the characteristics of
+too many illustrated books.'_--Pall Mall Gazette.
+
+_'The author of this volume has spared no pains in his endeavour to
+present a work which shall be worthy of public approbation. He has
+secured three elements favourable to a large success,--a popular and
+fascinating subject, exquisite illustrative sketches from an artist of
+celebrity, and letter-press dictated by an excellent judgment, neither
+tedious by its prolixity, nor curtailed to the omission of any
+circumstance worth recording.'_--Press.
+
+_'Mr. Blackburn has accomplished his task with the ease and pleasantness
+to be expected of the author of "Travelling in Spain." He writes
+graphically, sometimes with humour, always like a gentleman, and without
+a trace or tinge of false sentiment; in short, this is as acceptable a
+book as we have seen far many a day.'_--Atheneum.
+
+_'A general, but painstaking account, by a cultivated Englishman, of the
+general impression, step by step, which an ordinary Englishman,
+travelling for his pleasure, would derive from a visit to the
+watering-places of the Pyrenees.'_--Spectator.
+
+'_Mr. Blackburn has an eye for the beautiful in nature, and a faculty
+for expressing pleasantly what is worth describing; moreover, his
+pictures of men and manners are both amusing and life-like.'_--Art
+Journal.
+
+_'Readers of this book will gain therefrom a great deal of information
+should they feel disposed to make a summer pilgrimage over the romantic
+ground so well described by the author.'_--Era.
+
+_'One of the most exquisite books of the present year is Mr. Henry
+Blackburn's volume, "The Pyrenees;" it is brightly, amusingly, and
+intelligently written.'_--Daily News.
+
+_'Few persons will be able to turn over the leaves of the pretty book
+before us, without a longing desire for a nearer acquaintance with the
+scenes which it depicts.'_--Guardian.
+
+_'A pleasant account of travel and summer life in the
+Pyrenees.'_--Examiner.
+
+_'The author has illustrated M. Gustavo Dore's engravings very
+successfully.'_-The Times.
+
+_'This is a noble volume, not unworthy of the stately
+Pyrenees.'_--Illustrated London News.
+
+_'A singularly attractive book, well written, and beautifully
+illustrated.'_--Contemporary Review.
+
+
+London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston.
+
+
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