RAMBLES IN NORMANDY

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY

“ONE doubles his span of life,” says George Moore, “by knowing well a country not his own.”

Un pays aimÉ is a good friend, indeed, to whom one may turn in time of strife, and none other than Normandy—unless it be Brittany—has proved itself a more safe and pleasant land for travellers.

When one knows the country well he recognizes many things which it has in common with England. Its architecture, for one thing, bears a marked resemblance; for the Norman builders, who erected the magnificent ecclesiastical edifices in the Seine valley during the middle ages, were in no small way responsible for many similar works in England.

It is possible to carry the likeness still further, but the author is not rash enough to do so. The above is doubtless sufficient to awaken any spirit of contention which might otherwise be latent.

Some one has said that the genuine traveller must be a vagabond; and so he must, at least to the extent of taking things as he finds them. He may have other qualities which will endear him to the people with whom he comes in contact; he may be an artist, an antiquarian, or a mere singer of songs;—even if he be merely inquisitive, the typical Norman peasant makes no objection.

One comes to know Normandy best through the real gateway of the Seine, though not many distinguish between Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy. Indeed, not every one knows where Normandy leaves off and Brittany begins, or realizes even the confines of the ancient royal domain of the kings of France.

Rouen, however, the capital of the ancient province, is, perhaps, better known by casual travellers from England and America than any other city in France, save Paris itself. This is as it should be; for no mediÆval city of Europe has more numerous or beautiful shrines left to tell the story of its past than the Norman metropolis. Some will remember Rouen as a vast storehouse of architectural treasures, others for its fried sole and duckling Rouennais. Le vin du pays, cidre, or calvados goes well with either.

How many Englishmen know that it is in the tongue of the ancient Normans that the British sovereign is implored to approve or reject the laws of his Parliament? This is beyond dispute, though it appears not to be generally known; hence it is presumed that the land of the Conqueror is not wholly an overtilled field for Anglo-Saxon tourists.

The formula for the approval of the laws promulgated by the British Parliament to-day is: for the laws of finance, “Le Roy remercie ses bon sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult”; for laws of general purport, “Le Roy veult”; for a law of local interest, “Soit fait comme il est desirÉ.” And finally, when the royal endorsement is withheld, the formula is, “Le Roy s’avisera.”

In the House of Commons, only within the last year (1905), the First Lord of the Treasury rose to abolish this inexplicable usage, the employment of a foreign tongue. Mr. Balfour replied with a refusal based on historical tradition: “French was the language of state in England by right of the Norman Conquest.” It was in 1706 that the House of Lords forbade the use of French in parliamentary and judicial debates. The only chief of state in England who used the English tongue exclusively was Cromwell.

The full significance of the spirit of relationship between Normandy and England to-day is admirably brought out in the expression of sentiment which was advanced on the occasion of the Norman fÊtes held at Rouen in the summer of 1904, when the following address was despatched to King Edward at Buckingham Palace by the society that had the fÊtes in charge:

Normandy is by no means limited to the lower Seine valley, but for the purposes of the journeys set forth herein it is the gateway by which one enters. Normandy is the true land of the cider-apple, though there are other places where, if it is not more abundant, it is of better quality, or at least it has more of the taste of those little apples which grow on trees hardly larger than scrub or sagebrush.

All so-called cidre in Normandy is not cider; most of it is boisson Normande. You buy it in little packets, at a comparatively small price, and add water to suit the taste; only you don’t do it yourself—the landlord of your hotel does it to suit his taste, or his ideas of good business.

A little farther south, on the confines of the plain of Beauce, where Normandy ended and the ancient royal domain began, you get another sort of vin du pays.

“Du cidre, ou du vin?” says the garÇon, or more likely it is a bonne in these parts. “Du vin, s’il vous plait,” you answer, anxious to see what the new variety may be. When you get it, you find it a peculiar concoction, resembling the wines of Touraine, Bordeaux, Burgundy, or the Midi not a whit. Yet it is not cidre, though it well might be from its look, and somewhat from its taste. “C’est petit cousin de la piquette et certainement cousin du cidre,” volunteered an amiable commercial traveller, in reply to a query.

A small boy was once asked by a patronizing elder what books he used in studying geography and history, and he answered, curtly, “I use no books, I go to places.” That boy was very fortunate.

If the traveller is looking for information and incidental pleasure, he is in a class quite apart from the mere pleasure-seeker; and he ought, if he would profit from his travels to the fullest extent, to be able to increase his power of observation as he widens his horizon. He is often unable to do so, and goes about deploring the absence of pie and buttered toast.

With visitors to Normandy, the case is in no wise different, in spite of the fact that the well-known roads from Havre or Dieppe to Paris, via the Seine valley, are a little better known than any other part of France.

There are still but two wholly unspoiled spots in all the Seine valley, Les Andelys and La Roche-Guyon; and it is doubtful if they ever will become spoiled by tourists within the lives of the present generation. The railway has only recently come to Les Andelys, and the two pretty little towns, with their stupendous ChÂteau Gaillard, are even now not popular resorts, though the French, English, and American travellers are coming yearly in increasing numbers, while La Roche-Guyon—a few miles farther up the river—is even less well-known.

Mention is made of this simply because it serves to emphasize the fact that all highroads are not well-worn roads, and that there is a wealth of unlooked-for attraction to be gathered wherever one may roam.

Of the theorists who have attempted to class the Normans with the Danes, the least said the better. To rank the Norman-French and the Dane together, as the pioneers of feudalism, is to ignore the fact that it was the Normans who were the real civilizers of Britain.

The fact stands boldly forth, however, that the ancestors of Norman William, who afterward became England’s king, came direct and undiluted from Scandinavia, while the Norman Frenchman of later times was a distinct development of his own environment.

It is well enough to claim that the English nobility is descended from the Norman barons. At any rate it seems plausible, and one may well agree with those who have said that no Upper House of Lords could ever have been conceived by the Anglo-Saxons. History demonstrates the fact that the idea of the English House of Lords, as an appointment by the Crown, was of Norman conception, and alien to Anglo-Saxon tendencies.

It seems, perhaps, superfluous to reiterate these facts here, but they are so commonly overlooked by the traveller in France that it is well to recall that it was the Norman who governed Britain, and not members of the Saxon hierarchy who afterward became kings of France.

It is with reason that the Norman speaks so fondly of Jersey, Guernsey, and their sister isles. This is explained, of course, by the geographers, and one should, perhaps, be charitable, and allow for the spirit of patriotism, when the Frenchman calls the Channel Islands Les Iles Normandes.

The people there are in many ways as French as French can be. Their laws and their courts make use of the French tongue, and in most, if not quite all, respects the common characteristics are French.

The Frenchman himself, too, is often very fond of them, in spite of their alien allegiance. He calls them “trÈs curieusement pittoresques, fÉodals, sauvages, en mÊme temps que trÈs civilisÉes, les Iles Normandes sont un anachronisme, loyales À la couronne anglaise, mais avec une autonomie une vÉritable paradoxe de l’histoire politique.”

From this he generally goes on to say that “they are the Canada of Europe, a province of France, which continues the life of the French under the Protectorate of the English.”

The law of Jersey is that of the “Coutume Normande.” In Jersey the King of England reigns not; he is Duc de Normandie; the magistrates condemn or acquit “en parler Normand”; the code is Norman; the administration Norman. To London the habitant comes only as a resident, as does a Maltese, or a Canadian.

The Journal Officiel of Jersey is written in Norman. In it one reads such announcements as follows:

“A vendre, une vache, ainsi qu’une piano, les deux en bon État.”

Or again:

“On demande une institutrice, et on cÉderait un vieux cheval, pour un prix peu ÉlevÉ.”

Throughout the islands the sentiment is decidedly republican, or if not republican is at least Norman.

It is the English king who is duke, but it is the descendant of Rollon who reigns.

All French provinciaux are patriotic beyond belief to the outsider. The Gascon is always a Gascon, and the Norman is always a Norman.

They were masterful folks, those early Normans and the Northmen before them. Rollon, the first Duke of Rouen; Rurik, the first Czar of Russia; Eric le Roux, the first colonizer of Iceland and Greenland; Leif Ericson, the first discoverer of America and the colonizer of Vineland.

Of the Normans, Guillaume, son of Herleve, Robert le Diable, and Robert Guiscard de Hauteville were kings of Sicily. Cabot of Jersey was the discoverer of Canada, and Jean Cousin of Honfleur was the pilot of Christopher Columbus. Binot Lipaulmier de Gonneville and Jean Denys were the discoverers of Newfoundland, of Brazil, and of the Canaries; the Chevalier de la Salle was the discoverer of the Mississippi; and Champlain was the founder of Quebec.

Among other great discoverers and navigators are Jean de Bethencourt, Jean Ango, Duquesne, DumÉ, Tourville de Bricqueville, and Dumont d’Urville.

In letters and art Normandy has held a proud position.

In poesy stand forth the names of Pierre Corneille and his brother Thomas, Alain Chartier, Olivier Basselin, Jean Marot, Jean Bertand, Malherbe,—sometimes called “the father of modern poetry,”—Segrais, Malfiatre, Castel, Madeleine de ScudÉry, Benserade, the AbbÉ de Chaulieu, Bernardin St. Pierre, Casimir Delavigne, and his rival in dramatic verse, Ancelot. The historians and savants, Fontenelle, HuÉt, and Mezeray, St. Evremond, Dacier, and Burnouf, Armand Carrel, Octave Feuillet, Louis Bouilhet, Gustave Flaubert, and Guy de Maupassant.

Among others of Normandy’s great names are: Fresnel, the inventor of the lenticular lanterns for lighthouses, and ContÉ, the inventor of crayons bearing his name.

Among the artists are Jouvenet, Restout, Nicolas Poussin, Gericault, Millet, and Chaplin, and the sculptors, Anguier and Harivel-Durocher, the composers, BoÏeldieu and Auber, and the actor Melingue.

A great man in industry and statesmanship was Richard Waddington, while still greater and more ancient names, famed in history, round off the list: William the Conqueror, the Minister Le Tellier, MarÉchal de Coigny, Charlotte Corday, Le Brun, the Duc de Plaisance, and Dupont de l’Eure.

Canada was discovered and colonized by the Norman fishermen, sailors, carpenters, and masons of the fleet of Champlain from Honfleur, Dieppe, and Havre.

The regard which the Norman has for things American has generally been overlooked. But one need not go so far as to say, as has been done by Norman writers, that the present cosmopolitan population of America is made up mostly of the Scotch, the Irish, and the Normans of England and France—the descendants of the people whom William and his sixty thousand companions organized in social order.

M. Hector Fabre has said that, while all the colonists of New France—actually Canada—were not Normans, it was a curious phenomenon that all the children born in Canada were Norman.

The St. Lawrence, which the French still call the Saint Laurent, is to them as Norman as the Mississippi or the Seine, and it is reasonable to presume that they still regard North America as “La Normandie Transatlantique.”

All this is with some justification, if we go back as far as the Northmen, as the good people of Boston, in America, well know, for it is they who have supplanted the Genoese admiral by Leif, the son of Eric, and have even erected a statue to him.

With all this, then, in view, may the writer be pardoned for presuming that Normandy is not a worn-out touring-ground, nor one of which there is nothing new to tell. The author wishes to repeat, however, that no more has been attempted herein than to gather together such romantic and historical facts as have readily suggested themselves to him and to the artist, who have each of them lived many months in the very heart of that old province between Paris and the sea.

Normandy is in many respects the ideal of a delightful tour for those who would not go further afield, or who wish to know still more of those conventional touring-grounds of which, truth to tell, but little is known by those tourists personally conducted in droves, who do a watering-place in the morning, take their lunch at some riverside shrine, and get to a cathedral town in time to nibble at its masterpiece before the hour of opening, which in Normandy, Rouen in particular, is early.

The great rhomboid which bounds the France of to-day, enclosed, before the Revolution, thirty-three great provinces, of which, save Guyenne, Gascogne, Languedoc, and Bretagne, Normandy was the largest, and certainly the most potently strenuous in the life of the times.

Surrounded by Picardy, the Ile de France (the domaine-royal of the Capets), by Maine, and Bretagne, and bordered on the north by La Manche, it was only joined to France by confiscation by Philippe-Auguste, from Jean Sans-Terre, some two hundred or more years after the advent of the third race of kings.

To-day it forms the Department of the Lower Seine, Eure, Le Calvados, La Manche, and a part of L’Orne.

Normandy was once doubtless a land of the Celts, who gradually withdrew to Bretagne. In time it became a part of Roman Gaul. The part once known as Neustria was ceded by Charles the Simple in 911 to the Norman descendants of Rollon, from whom it took its new name, Normandy.

The Dukes of Normandy became, after the conquest, Kings of England, and in 1154 the Counts of Anjou and of Maine inherited, through Henry Plantagenet, the throne of England, thus giving that country a line of Angevine kings.

This strong-growing power of the Norman dukes was broken by Philippe-Auguste, who conquered Normandy in 1204.

During the Hundred Years’ War the English many times invaded Normandy, but were finally driven out by the redoubtable Duguesclin.

Henry V. invaded France and took Harfleur in 1415, occupying all of the north and northwest of France. Charles VII. victoriously entered Rouen, and at Formigny again achieved the conquest of Normandy by the French. Louis XI. ceded Normandy to his brother.

Many ancient fiefs were contained in this great province, but the ComtÉ d’Evreux, ComtÉ d’AlenÇon, ComtÉ d’Eu, and the DuchÉ de PenthiÈvre were united definitely with the kingdom in 1789.

Previous to 1789 the ancient military government of the province was divided into Rouen, Caen, and AlenÇon.

By its reconstruction into departments the province lost two bishoprics, which were not reestablished by the Concordat, Lisieux and Avranches; and the latter lost, as well, nearly all vestiges of its former beautiful cathedral, before which Henry II. of England expiated his crime of the murder of Becket.

The Land of the Conqueror, trod by some of the greatest men the world has known in mediÆval and modern times, has not, even now, in spite of its associations and accessibility, become a world-worn resort.

Students of art, architecture, and history, and a few tourists from London, who demand a change of scene in a near-by foreign land, reach its shores between Whitsun and the August Bank Holiday; but, popular supposition to the contrary, the traffic receipts of the steamship and railway companies do not indicate anything like a generous patronage of this ideal land for a present-day sentimental journey.

Normandy stands to-day as it stood in the middle ages, with many memorials and reminiscences of its feudal pomp and glory, with here and there a monument to Rollon, William the Conqueror, or Richard the Lion-hearted.

As it was three centuries or more ago, teeming with many a monument, cathedral, abbey, fortress, and chÂteau, so Normandy is to-day, except for the ruin wrought by the bloody hand of revolution. In spirit Normandy is still mediÆval, and here and there are evidences of the even more ancient Roman or Celtic remains.

History gives the facts, and the guide-books conventional information. The most that the present work attempts is to recount the results of more or less intimate acquaintance with the land and its people, now and again bringing to light certain matters not to be met with in a briefer sojourn.

CHAPTER II.
THE ROADS OF FRANCE

ONE of the joys of France to-day, as indeed it ever has been, is travel by road. The rail has its advantages, but it also has its disadvantages, whereas the most luxurious traveller by road, even if he be snugly tucked away in a sixty-horse royal MercÉdes, is nothing more than an itinerant vagabond, and France is the land above all others for the sport.

As an industry to be developed and fostered, France early recognized the automobile as a new world-force, and the powers that be were convinced that the way should be smoothed for those who would, with the poet Henley, sing the song of speed.

With their inheritance of magnificent roadways, this was not difficult; for the French and mine host—or his French counterpart, who is really a more up-to-date individual than he is usually given the credit of being—rose gallantly to the occasion as soon as they saw the return of that trade which had grown beautifully less since the passing of the malle-poste and the diligence.

The paternalism of the French government is a wonderful thing. It not only stands sponsor for the preservation and restoration of historical monuments,—great churches, chÂteaux, and the like,—but takes a genial interest in automobilism as well.

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DILIGENCE

Hills have been levelled and dangerous corners straightened, level crossings abolished or better guarded; and, where possible, the dread caniveaux—or water-gullies—which cross the roadway here and there have been filled up. More than all else, the execrable paved road, for which France has been noted, is fast being done away with. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the chief magistrate himself is not an automobilist; which places him in practically a unique position among the rulers of Europe.

At Bayeux, at Caen, at Lisieux, and at Evreux, in Normandy, one is on that great national roadway which runs from Paris to Cherbourg through the heart of the old province. This great roadway is numbered XIII. by the government, which considers its highways a national property, and is typical of all others of its class throughout France.

The military roads of France are famous, and automobilists and some others know their real value as a factor in the prosperity of a nation.

It is not as it was in 1689, when Madame de SÉvignÉ wrote that it took three days to travel from Paris to Rouen. Now one does it, in an automobile, in three hours.

From Pont Audemer she wrote a few days later to Madame de Grignan: “We slept yesterday at Rouen, a dozen leagues away.” Continuing, she said: “I have seen the most beautiful country in all the world; I have seen all the charms of the beautiful Seine, and the most agreeable prairies in the world.... I had known nothing of Normandy before.... I was too young to appreciate.”

Certainly this is quite true of Normandy, now as then, and to travel by road will demonstrate it beyond doubt.

The roads in France were, for several centuries after the decline and fall of the Roman power, in a very dilapidated state, as the result of simple neglect. Louis XIV., in the latter part of the seventeenth century, made some good roads in the vicinity of Paris; but it was not until the end of the eighteenth century (1775) that the real work of road-making throughout the country began. It was in the time of Napoleon I. that most of the great national roads, which run through the country in various directions, were constructed. These roads were made largely for military purposes, and connect the chief towns and the French frontiers with Paris.

Besides the leading roads, there are also many other roads varying in degrees of importance, classed as follows:

(1) Routes Nationales. Constructed and maintained by the national government.

(2) Routes DÉpartmentales. Constructed and maintained by the several departments at national expense.

(3) Chemins Vicinaux de Grande Communication. Passing through and connecting two or more communities, maintained and served by them, aided by government grant.

(4) Chemins Vicinaux de Moyenne Communication. Similar to Class III., but of less importance, and maintained at the cost of the people, but controlled by the department.

(5) Chemins de Petite Communication. Of still less importance, maintained by the communities separately under the supervision of government engineers.

(6) Chemins Ruraux. Roads of the least importance, and wholly controlled and maintained by the people without any interference from the government officials.

The art of road-building in France is only excelled by that of the Romans, and they unfortunately lived before the days of high-speed traffic and rubber-shod wheels.

The great national roads, usually tree-bordered, average but three in one hundred grade, the departmental roads four in one hundred, and the Chemins de Grande Communication five in one hundred. In all except very hilly districts, where of course there are deviations, this is the rule.

Napoleon’s idea was that these national highways were essentially a military means of communication, and as such they were laid out with a certain regularity and uniformity. Formerly they were largely paved with stone blocks. Who, among those who have travelled extensively by road in France, does not know the execrable pavements of the populated neighbourhoods through which these highways run? To-day these are largely disappearing. The roads in France suffer more from drought than from wet. They dry quickly after rain, and, in order to shade and protect the surface from the dry heat of summer, the planting of trees on the sides of the roads has been largely adopted. As showing the importance that has been attached to this matter, royal decrees were formerly passed, determining the manner of planting, the kind of trees to be used, and the penalties to be imposed on those who injured them.

Most of the roads of France, even the national roads, cross the railways on the level instead of over bridges. There are gate-keepers and gates for the protection of the public. At many of them the signalling is of a very primitive kind, and yet there are few accidents.

The history of the roads of France is the history of the nation since the conquest of ancient Gaul by the legions of CÆsar.

The Voie Auguste was the first, and bound Lyons with Italy by the Col du Petit St. Bernard, which to-day is actually National Road No. 90.

Agrippa made Lyons the centre of four great diverging roads; the first by the valley of the Rhine and the Meuse; the second by Autun to the port of Genosiacum, to-day Boulogne-sur-mer; the third by Auvergne toward Bordeaux; and the fourth by the valley of the RhÔne to Aix and Marseilles.

From the decadence of the Western Empire and the invasion of the Barbarians, these fine roads were practically abandoned. Many good bridges were destroyed, and the work of road-building ceased completely, the people finding their way about by mere trails.

With the advent of Christianity in Gaul there was a partial renaissance of these Roman roads, thanks to great fairs and pilgrimages. The monastic orders became in a way the parents and protectors of bridges and roads, with St. BÉnÈzet at their head, who in the twelfth century constructed the wonderful Pont d’Avignon, which still stands.

The general system of the present-day national roads follows largely the old Roman means of communication, as well as those traced by nature, along the banks of rivers and on the flanks of mountains and in the valleys lying between. The great national roads of France form a class by themselves, independent of the departmental and communal roads. They approximate forty thousand kilometres, and run at a tangent from the capital itself and between the chief cities of the eighty odd departments which make up modern France.

In general, the designation of the road, its number, and classification are indicated on the kilometre marks with which every important road in France is marked.

The national roads, having their origin at Paris, have their distances marked from Notre Dame, and certain of the secondary cities are taken for the point of departure of other great roads.

A ministerial decree, put forth in 1853, decided that the national roads should have their distances marked from their entrance into each department, a regulation which has been followed nearly everywhere, except that distances are still reckoned from Paris on most of the great highroads of Normandy and Brittany.

Guide-posts are placed at all important cross-roads and pattes-d’oie (a goose-foot, literally).

An iron plaque, painted white and blue, beside the road, shows without any possibility of mistake the commune in which it is situated, the next important place in either direction, and frequently the next town of considerable proportions, even though it may be half a hundred kilometres distant.

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Road Plaques Touring Club de France

French roads are indeed wonderfully well marked; and these little blue and white plaques, put up by the roadside or fastened on the wall of some dwelling at the entrance or the exit of a village or town, must number hundreds of thousands.

In these days of fast-rushing automobiles a demand has sprung up for a more striking and legible series of special sign-boards along certain roads, in order that he who runs may read. And so the Touring Club of France, on the great road which runs from Paris through Normandy, to Havre and Dieppe, for instance, has erected a series of large-lettered and abbreviated sign-boards, which are all that could be desired.

Besides these, there are other enigmatical symbols and signs erected by paternal societies of road users which will strike a stranger dumb with conjecture as to what they may mean.

They are all essentially practical, however, as the following tableau will show. It is very important indeed for an automobilist or other road user to know that a railway-gate (like enough to be shut) awaits him around a sharp curve, or that a steep hill is hidden just behind a bank of trees.

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Descente rapide. MontÉe. Passage À niveau. Virage À droite. Virage À gauche. Mauvais pavÉ. Virage avec montÉe. Virage avec descente. Rails en saillie sur route. Dos d’Âne. Caniveau. Passage en dessous. Croisement dangereux. Descente sinueuse avec mauvais virages. Village. Road Signs in France

Still another class of signs met with by road users in France is most helpful. They, too, shoot out a warning which one may read as he rushes by at high speed; printed in great staring letters, one, two, or three words which one dare not, if he values his life, ignore.

Truly one who goes astray or contravenes any law of the road in France has only himself to blame.

The chief national roads crossing Normandy are as follows:

After the fall of the Roman Empire the magnificent roadways which threaded Gaul in every direction all but disappeared, and for a time the horse was employed only with the saddle, the more or less indolent nobles travelling mostly by vehicles drawn by oxen.

By the middle ages the horse had come to be admired as a noble animal by virtue of his usefulness in war; but the routes of communication were hardly more than simple tracks and by no means replaced the great rivers, which Pascal had called “ces chemins qui marchent.” Indeed the “coches d’eau” had not entirely disappeared from the waterways of France until 1830.

The first carriages at all approaching the modern fashion were imported from Italy in the sixteenth century, doubtless by the Medicis. In 1550 there were three, only, in Paris, but under Louis XIV. the roads became more carefully guarded and increased greatly in number.

The great carrosses and calÈches of the early days were ponderous affairs, a calÈche known as a litiÈre, the precursor of the modern sleeping-car, it would seem, having a weight of 2,500 kilos.

The following lines well describe it:

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BERLINE de POSTE.

Under Louis XV. the carrosse became lighter and the chaise on two wheels came in. Then followed cabriolets, berlines, and the poste-chaise, and finally the malle-poste and the diligence.

The most familiar of all, to those of a few generations ago, and to readers of travel literature, is the diligence.

These great carriages apparently had a most respectable lease of life, many having been in service for a great many years. To-day they have mostly disappeared, and in Normandy and Brittany practically exist not at all, so far as the tourist traveller is concerned, though once and again they may be useful on a cross-country road in order to connect with the railroad.

It was only as late as 1760, however, that a public service of these diligences was established. At that time the coaches left Paris on stated days and travelled with unwonted regularity. The diligence to Rennes, in the heart of Bretagne, was timed for four days’ travelling, and five days was employed for the journey to the old Breton capital of Nantes, on the Loire.

These great carriages, commonly known as “Royales,” were hung on springs and drawn by eight horses. They did not travel as quickly as the malle-poste, but their rates were somewhat less, and they performed the common service before the advent of steam and the rail.

There was nothing very luxurious or grand about them, but they were majestic and picturesque, and they sometimes carried a load, including passengers and luggage, of five thousand kilos.

Closely allied with roads is the general topography of a country as shown by its maps.

No country has such a marvellous series of maps of its soil as has France. The maps of the Minister of the Interior and the Etat Major are wonders of the art, and no traveller in Normandy or Brittany, or indeed any other part of France, should be without them. They are obtainable at any bookseller’s in a large town, and the prices are remarkably low; ranging from thirty centimes a sheet for the map of the Etat Major, printed only in black, to eighty centimes a sheet for the map of the Minister of the Interior, printed in colours.

The following conventional signs will show the extreme practicability of the maps of the Etat Major, which are made on four different scales, the most useful being that of 1-80,000. The maps of the Minister of the Interior are made only on the scale of 1-100,000.

Now and then on these great highroads of France, of which those of Normandy and Brittany are representative, one passes a headquarters or a barracks of the gendarmerie, those servitors of the law, the national police, an organization which grew up out of the men-at-arms or gens d’armes of Charles VII.

These great barracks are veritable monasteries, where the religion of faithful duty to the public and the nation reigns supreme. One never passes one of these impressive establishments without a full appreciation of the motto of the knightly Bayard, so frequently graven over their doors: “Sans peur et sans reproche.”

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Explanation of the Maps of the Etat Major

The Assembly, in 1790, first instituted this almost perfectly organized police force, and Napoleon himself thought so highly of them that he wrote to Berthier in 1812: “Take not the police with you, but conserve them for the guarding of the country-side. Two or three hundred soldiers are as nothing, but two or three hundred police will assure the tranquillity and good order of the people at large.”

To-day, in times of peace, twenty-seven legions of police assure the security of the country-side; an effective force of about twenty-five thousand men and 725 officers, of whom a comparative few only are mounted.

A colonel or a lieutenant-colonel is placed at the head of a legion, a company being allotted to each department. The company is commanded by a major; then comes the district, placed under the orders of a captain or a lieutenant; the section, commanded by a junior officer; and finally a squad with a non-commissioned officer or corporal at its head.

Independent of crime and its details, the police are responsible as well for the maintenance of order in general.

The pay for all this, it is to be regretfully noted, is not at all commensurate. An unmounted policeman receives but 2 fr. 81 c. per day, and if he is mounted but 3 fr. 23 c. per day.

CHAPTER III.
THE FORESTS OF FRANCE

THE forests of France are a source of never-ending interest and pride to the Frenchman, of whatever station in life.

They are admirably preserved and cared for, and a paternal ministerial department guards them as jealously as a fond mother guards her children.

No cutting of trees is allowed, except according to a prescribed plan; and, when a new road is cut through,—and those superlative roadways of France run straight as the crow flies through many of the finest forest tracts,—as likely as not an old one is replanted.

The process of replanting goes on from day to day, and one sees no depleted forests of a former time, which are to-day a graveyard of bare stumps.

If there is any regulation as to tree-planting in these great forests, it would seem, to a casual observer, to be that where one tree has grown before two are to be made grow in its place.

There is a popular regard among all travellers in France for Fontainebleau, Versailles, and perhaps Chantilly, but there are other tree-grown areas, quite as charming, little known to the general traveller: Rambouillet, for instance, and Villers-Cotterets, of which Dumas writes so graphically in “The Wolf Leader.”

Normandy has more than its share of these splendid forests, some of them of great extent and charm. Indeed, the forest domain of Lyons, in Upper Normandy, one of the most extensive in all France, is literally covered with great beeches and oaks, surrounding small towns and hamlets, and an occasional ruined chÂteau or abbey, which makes a sojourn within its confines most enjoyable to all lovers of outdoor life.

Surrounding the old Norman capital of Rouen are five great tracts which serve the inhabitants of that now great commercial city as a summer playground greatly appreciated.

Game of various sorts still exists; deer in plenty, apparently, together with smaller kinds; and now and then one will hear tales of bears, which are, however, almost unbelievable.

In some regions—the forests of Louviers, for instance—the wild boar still exists. The chase for the wild boar, with the huntsmen following somewhat after the old custom (with a horn-blower, who is most theatrical in his get-up, and his followers, armed with lances and pikes in quite old-time fashion), is, as may be imagined, a most novel sight.

The forests of Roumare and Mauny, occupying the two peninsulas formed by the winding Seine just below Rouen, are remarkable, and are like nothing else except the other forests in France.

There are fine roadways crossing and recrossing in all directions, beautifully graded, with overhanging oaks and beeches, and as well kept as a city boulevard.

Deer are still abundant, and the whole impression which one receives is that of a genuine wildwood, and not an artificial preserve.

In the picturesque forest of Roumare is hidden away the tiny village of Genetey, which has for an attraction, besides its own delightful situation, an ancient Maison de Templiers of the thirteenth century, a well of great depth, and a chapel to St. Gargon, of the sixteenth century, built in wood, with some fine sculptures and paintings, which was at one time a favourite place for pious pilgrims from Rouen.

Not far away is Henouville, with a sixteenth-century church, lighted by five great windows of extraordinary proportions. The choir encloses the remains of Legendre, the almoner of Louis XIII., who was curÉ of Henouville, and whose fame as a horticulturist was as great as that brought him by his official position.

The near-by ChÂteau du Belley and its domain is now turned into a farm.

La Fontaine, a hamlet situated directly on the Seine bank, is overshadowed by a series of high rocks of most fantastic form, known as the chair, or pulpit, of Gargantua.

The forest of La Londe, of 2,154 hectares, on the opposite bank of the Seine from Rouen, is a remarkable tract of woodland, its oaks and beeches quite reminiscent of Fontainebleau. The trees as a whole are the most ancient and grand of those of any of the forests of Normandy. Two which have been given names are known respectively as Bel-ArsÈne, a magnificent beech of eleven great branches, planted in 1773, and the ChÊne de la CÔte RÔtie, supposed to have the ripe old age of 450 years; and it looks its age.

The forest of Londe is what the French geographer would describe as pittoresque et accidentÉe. It is all this would lead one to infer; and, together with the forest of the Rouvray, exceeds any other in Normandy, except the forest domain of Lyons.

At the crossing of the GrÉsil road is the ChÊne-À-la-Bosse, having a circumference of three and a half metres; and, near by, one sees the HÊtre-À-l’Image, a great beech of fantastic form.

Amid a savage and entirely unspoiled grandeur is a series of caves and grottoes, of themselves of no great interest, but delightfully environed.

Near Elbeuf, on the edge of the forest of Londe, are the Roches d’Orival, a series of rock-cut grottoes and caverns,—a little known spot to the majority of travellers in the Seine valley. Practically the formation begins at Elbeuf itself, onward toward Rouen, by the route which follows the highroad to the Norman capital via Grand Couronne. At Port du Gravier, on the bank of the Seine, is a sixteenth-century chapel cut in the rock, like its brethren or sisters at St. Adrien on the opposite bank, and at Haute Isle, just above Vernon.

At Roche-Foulon are numerous rock-caverns still inhabited, and at the Roche du Pignon begins a series of curiously weathered and crumbled rocks, most weird and bizarre.

On a neighbouring hill are the ruins of ChÂteau Fouet, another of those many riverside fortresses attributed to Richard Coeur de Lion.

The forest domain of Lyons is the finest beech-wood in all France, and its 10,614 hectares (rather more than thirty thousand acres) was in the middle ages the favourite hunting-ground of the Dukes of Normandy. It is the most ample of all the forests of Normandy.

There are at least three trips which forest-lovers should take if they come to the charming little woodland village of Lyons-le-ForÊt. It will take quite two days to cover them, and the general tourist may not have sufficient time to spare. Still, if he is so inclined, and wants to know what a really magnificent French forest is like to-day, before it has become spoiled and overrun (as is Fontainebleau), this is the place to enjoy it to the full.

The old ChÂteau of Lyons, and the tiny hamlets of Taisniers, Hogues, HÉron, and the feudal ruins of Malvoisine, are a great source of pleasure to those who have become jaded with the rush of cities and towns.

The chÂteau of the Marquis de Pommereu d’AligrÉ, in the valley of the HÉron, can be seen and visited, or rather the park may be (the park and chÂteau together are only thrown open to the public on the fÊte patronale—the first Sunday of September). Croissy-sur-Andelle is another forest village, and the Val St. Pierre, a sort of dry river-bed carpeted with a thick undergrowth, is quite as fine as anything of the kind at Fontainebleau.

At Petit Val is a magnificent beech five and a half metres in circumference, and supposed to be four hundred years old.

At Le Tronquay there is a great school, over whose entrance doorway one reads on a plaque that it is—

“Commemorative de la dÉlivrance des paroissiens du Tronquay admis À porter la fiertÉ de St. Romain de Rouen, le 5 mai, jour de l’ascencion, de l’anne 1644.”

At the end of a double row of great firs, lie the ruins of the ChÂteau de Richbourg, built by Charles IX.

La Fenille is a small market-town, quite within the forest, where one may get luncheon for the modest price of two francs, cider and coffee included, if he wanders so far from Lyons-le-ForÊt as this.

Here there are the remains of some of the dungeons and the brick walls of a chÂteau built by Philippe-le-Bel. The tiny church dates from 1293, and in the cemetery is a sculptured cross of the time of Henri IV.

In the canton of Catelier are found the most remarkable trees of the whole forest. One great trunk alone, which was recently cut down, gave over thirty stÈres of wood; which means nothing as a mere statement, but which looked, as it was piled by the roadside, to be a mass of timber great enough to fill the hold of a ship.

At the source of the LevriÈre, a limpid forest stream, is the manor-house of the Fontaine du Houx, of the sixteenth century, belonging to a M. Hebert. If one is diplomatic he may get permission to enter to view the bedroom of Agnes Sorel, that royal favourite of other days whose reputation is a bit higher than those of some of her contemporaries.

The doorkeeper will gladly accept a tip, so the visitor need have no hesitancy in making the demand, though he will have to choose his words.

The old manor is a fine representative of a mediÆval house, surrounded by a great moat and garnished with a series of turrets. The chief features, outside of the apartment in which slept the gentle Agnes, are a fine staircase, a tower with a drawbridge over the moat, and, in the vestibule, a fine tapestry from the ChÂteau de la Haie.

The ChÂteau de Fleury, at Fleury la ForÊt, is a fine structure, dating from 1645, and at Croix-Mesnil is the ChÂteau Louis XIII., which formed the dwelling of the grand master of rivers and forests in that monarch’s time.

By no means are these all of the interesting attractions of this great national forest, but it ought to be sufficient to inspire the true forest-lover to seek out other beauties for himself.

The road of the Gros ChÊne, called also the “ChÊne de la Londe,” and “l’Homme Mort,” and aged perhaps four hundred years, leads to the Carrefour des Quatre Cantons, near which is the Chapelle Ste. Catherine; a famous place of pilgrimage where, according to popular belief, any young girl who brings a bouquet to the shrine, and says a mass, is assured of marrying within a year. After this there is another act of devotion to be gone through—or is it a superstition in this case? She must bring thither the pins from her marriage veil.

The Abbey of Mortemer, founded in 1134 by the monks of the order of Citeux, is another architectural monument with a remarkably picturesque woodland site. The living-rooms (seventeenth century) have been restored, but the church, of three centuries before, is quite in a ruinous condition, though a great open-ended transept remains, as well as a fine rose window and some of the beautifully arched walls of the old cloister.

The Ferme des Fiefs, and the ChÂteau de Rosay, situated in a charming park, where the Lieure falls in a series of tiny cascades, about completes the list of the forest’s attractions; but its hidden beauties and yet undiscovered charms are many.

Perhaps some day the forest domain of Lyons will have an artist colony, or a number of them, such as are found in the encircling villages of the forest of Fontainebleau, but at present there are none, though it is belief of the writer that the aspect of nature unspoiled is far better here than at the more popular Fontainebleau.

CHAPTER IV.
A TRAVEL CHAPTER

TO those upon whom has fallen the desire to travel amid historic sights and scenes, no part of France offers so much that is so accessible, so economically covered, or as interesting as the coasts and plains and river valleys of Normandy.

If possible they should lay out their journey beforehand, and if time presses make a tour that shall comprise some one distinct region only; as the Seine valley from Havre to La Roche-Guyon; the coast from TrÉport to Caen, or even Granville, or Mont St. Michel; or following a line which runs more inland from Rouen by Lisieux, Falaise, and the valley of the Orne, to the famous Mont on the border of Brittany. They may indeed combine this last with a little tour which should take in the north Breton coast and even cross to the Channel Isles; but if it is the Normandy coast or the Norman country-side of the Seine valley which they desire to know fully, and if time be limited, they should confine themselves to either one route or the other.

Normandy divides itself topographically into the three itineraries mentioned: “The Coast,” “The Seine Valley,” and the “Inland Route.” They may be combined readily enough, or they may be taken separately; but to nibble a bit at one, a little at another, and still less at a third, and then rush on to Paris and its distractions, or to some seaside place where brass bands and a casino form the principal attractions, is not the way to have an intimate, personal, and wholly delightful experience of “la belle Normandie.”

A skeleton plan of each of these itineraries will be found, and further details of a practical nature also, elsewhere in this book.

One’s expenses may be what they will. By rail, twelve to fifteen francs a day will amply pay the bill, and by road, on bicycle or automobile, they can be made to approximate as much or as little as one’s tastes demand; nor will the quality of the accommodation and fare vary to an appreciable degree in either case. Even the automobilist with his sixty-horse MercÉdes, while he may be suspected of being a millionaire American or an English lord, will not necessarily be adjudged so, and will be charged according to the tariff of the “Touring Club,” or other organization of which he may be a member. If he demands superior accommodation, a sitting-room as well as a bedroom, or a fire and a hot bath, he will pay extra for that, as well as for the vin supÉrieur which he may wish instead of the ordinaire of the table d’hÔte, or the cafÉ which he drinks after his meal.

The old simile still holds good. The franc in France will usually purchase the value of a shilling in England. There is not much difference with respect to one shilling; but an appalling sum in a land of cheap travel, when one has let a thousand of them pass through his hands.

The leading hotels of the great towns and cities of Rouen, Havre, and Cherbourg rise almost to the height of the charges of those of the French capital itself; and those of Trouville-Deauville or Dieppe to perhaps even higher proportions, if one requires the best accommodation. The true peripatetic philosopher, however, will have naught to do with these, but will seek out for himself—unless some one posts him beforehand—such humble, though excellent inns as the “Trois Marchands,” or the “Mouton d’Argent.”

These are the real hotels of the country, where one lives bountifully for six to eight francs a day, and eats at the table d’hÔte with an informative commercial traveller, or a keenly mindful small landholder of the country-side, who, if it is market-day, will as like as not be dressed in a black blouse.

One criticism may justly be made of many of the hotels in Normandy, though mostly this refers only to such tourist establishments as one finds at Dieppe or Trouville. It is that the table wine is often charged for at two francs a bottle, while it ought to be served without extra charge, and is elsewhere in France. In many commercial hotels this is not the custom, but too frequently it is so, and, considering that the hÔteliers of Normandy buy their wine in a much more favourable market, by reason of its cheap transport by sea, than their brethren of LozÈre or the Cantal, where wine is never thought of as an extra, it seems somewhat of an imposition to one who knows his France well.

The beef and mutton of Normandy is of most excellent quality, coming from fine animals who are only used if they are in the best condition.

This statement is made with a knowledge based upon some years’ residence, to allay the all too prevalent opinion that French meat is of inferior quality, and is only palatable because well disguised in the cooking. This is a fetish which ought long ago to have been burned. The fish one gets in Normandy is always fresh and remarkably varied, as well as the shell-fish (crevettes, meaning usually shrimp or prawns). The oysters are of course famous, for no one ever heard of a Courseulles bivalve which had typhoid tendencies.

The railway has proved a great civilizer in France, and everywhere is found a system of communicating lines which are almost perfect.

The great artery of the Western Railroad reaches out through all Normandy and Brittany, and its trunk lines to Dieppe, Havre, Cherbourg, and Brest leave nothing to be desired in the way of appointments and expedition.

The only objection, that the economical traveller can justify, is that second and third class tickets are often not accepted for distances under a hundred or a hundred and fifty kilometres; and, accordingly, he is forced to wait the accommodation train, which, truth to tell, is not even a little brother of the express-train. If it is any relation at all, it is a stepchild merely.

At all events, the railway service throughout France is well systematized and efficient, and Ruskin’s diatribe against railways in general was most unholy. Lest it may have been forgotten, as many of his ramblings have, and should be, it is repeated here. “Railways are to me the loathsomest form of devilry now extant, animated and deliberate earthquakes” (we know what he thought of bicycles, and we wonder with fear what may have been his strictures on the automobile had he lived a few years longer), “destructive of all wise, social habits and possible natural beauty, carriages of damned souls on the ridges of their own graves.” This, from a prophet and a seer, makes one thank Heaven the tribe was blind.

Travel by rail is a simple and convenient process in Normandy, as indeed it is in all France. There is no missing of trains at lonesome junctions, and the time-tables are admirably and lucidly planned.

In the larger towns all the stations have a bureau of information which will smooth the way for the traveller if he will not take it upon himself to consult that almost perfect series of railway time-tables found in every cafÉ and hotel throughout France. He registers his baggage and gets a receipt for it, like the “checks” of the American railways, by paying two sous; or he may send it by express (not by freight, for there is too little difference in price), or as unaccompanied baggage, which will ensure its being forwarded by the first passenger-train, and at a most reasonable charge.

The economical way of travelling in France, and Normandy in particular, is third class; and the carriages, while bare and hard-seated, are thoroughly warmed in winter, and are as clean as those of their kind anywhere; perhaps more so than in England and America, where the stuffy cushions harbour much dirt and other objectionable things.

Second class very nearly approaches the first class in point of price, and is very nearly as luxurious; while first class itself carries with it comparative exclusiveness at proportionately high charges.

More important, to the earnest and conscientious traveller, is the fact that often, for short distances between near-by places, a convenient train will be found not to carry third-class passengers; and to other places, a little less widely separated, not even second class; although third and second class passengers are carried by the same train for longer distances. This is about the only inconvenience one suffers from French railways, and makes necessary a careful survey of the time-table, where the idiosyncrasies of individual trains are clearly marked.

Excursion trains of whatever class are decidedly to be avoided. They depart and return from Paris, Trouville, Dieppe, or some other popular terminus at most inconveniently uncomfortable hours, and are invariably overcrowded and not especially cheap.

The attractions of Normandy for the traveller are so many and varied that it would be practically impossible to embrace them all in any one itinerary without extending its limit of time beyond that at the disposal of most travellers.

From TrÉport, on the borders of Picardy, to Arromanches, near Bayeux, is an almost uninterrupted line of little and big seashore towns whose chief industry consists of catering to summer visitors.

From Arromanches to Mont St. Michel, the seaside resorts are not so crowded, and are therefore the more enjoyable, unless one demands the distractions of great hotels, golf-links, and tea-rooms.

In the Seine valley, beginning with La Roche-Guyon, on the borders of the ancient royal domain, down to the mouth of the mighty river at Havre, is one continuous panorama of delightful large and small towns, not nearly so well known as one might suppose. Vernon with its tree-bordered quays; Giverny, and its artists colony; Les Andelys with their “saucy castle” built by Richard Coeur de Lion; Pont de l’Arche with the florid Gothic church dedicated to Our Lady of the Arts; the riverside resorts above Rouen; Elbeuf with its busy factories, but picturesque and historic withal; Rouen, the ancient Norman capital; La Bouille-Molineux; the great abbeys of JumiÈges, St. Wandrille and St. Georges de Boscherville; Caudebec-en-Caux; Lillebonne; Harfleur; Honfleur, and Havre form a compelling array of sights and scenes which are quite irresistible.

On the northeastern coast are Etretat, famed of artists of generations ago; FÉcamp with the associations of its ancient abbey; Dieppe; the Petites Dalles; St. Valery-en-Caux; Eu with its chÂteau; and TrÉport and its attendant little seashore villages.

Inland, and southward, through the Pays-de-Caux, are Lyons-le-ForÊt, which, as its name bespeaks, is a little forest-surrounded town, quite unworldly, and eight kilometres from a railway; Gournay; Forges-les-Eaux, a decayed seaport town; Gisors; and the charming little villages of the valleys of the Andelle and the Ept.

Follow up the Eure from its juncture with the Seine at the Pont de l’Arche, and one enters quite another region, quite different from that on the other side of the Seine.

The chief towns are Louviers, a busy cloth-manufacturing centre with an art treasure of the first rank in its beautifully flamboyant church; and Evreux with its bizarre cathedral, headquarters of the Department of the Eure; while northward and westward, by Conches and Beaumont-le-Roger to Caen and Bayeux, lies a wonderful country of picturesque and historic towns, such as Lisieux; Bernay, famous for its horse-fair; Falaise, the birthplace of William the Conqueror; and Dives, where he set sail for England’s shores,—names which will awaken memories of the past in a most vivid fashion.

Westward of the valley of the Orne lies the Cotentin, with the cathedral towns of Avranches, Coutances, and St. LÔ, and Mont St. Michel, which of itself is a sort of boundary stone between Normandy and Brittany.

The monumental curiosities of the province and the natural attractions are all noted in the plans which are here given; and from them, and this descriptive outline, one should be able to map out for himself a tour most suitable to correspond to his inclinations.

There is this much to say of Normandy, in addition: it is the most abundantly supplied of all the ancient French provinces with artistic and natural sights and curiosities, and above all is compact and accessible.

There is one real regret that will strike one with regard to the journeyings in the valley of the Seine. There is no way of making the trip by water above Rouen. From Havre to Rouen, one may journey in a day on a little steamer, a most enjoyable trip; and at Rouen one finds the little “fly-boats,”—reminiscent of the bateaux mouches of Paris,—which will take one for a half a dozen miles in either direction for astonishingly low fares.

Pont de l’Arche, however, and Muids, and that most picturesquely situated of all northern French towns, Les Andelys, onward to Tosny, and still up-river, by Port Mort to Vernon, there is no communication by water for the passenger, though the great barges and canal-boats pass and repass a given point scores of times in a day, carrying coal, wine, cotton, and other merchandise, through the very finest scenery of the Seine.

A few words on the French language are inevitable with every author of a book of French travel, and so they are given here. There is a current idea that English is the language for making one’s way about. Try it in Normandy or Brittany, in the average automobile garage, the post-office, or the railway station, or on the custodian of some great church or chÂteau, and you will prove its fallacy.

At Rouen, Havre, or Dieppe, and at the great tourist hotels it is different; but in the open country seldom, if ever, will you come across one who can speak or understand a single word of English; save an occasional chauffeur who may have seen service on some titled person’s motor-car in England, and knows “all right,” “pretty soon,” and “go ahead” to perfection.

The writer notes two exceptions. Doubtless there may be others.

At the quaint little Seine-side town of Vetheuil, near La Roche-Guyon, which fits snugly in the southeast corner of Normandy, one enters the tobacco-shop to buy a picture post-card, perhaps, of its quaint little church, so loved by artists, and there he will find an unassuming little man who retails tobacco to the natives and souvenir postal cards to strangers while chatting glibly in either tongue.

At the HÔtel Bellevue in Les Andelys is a waitress who speaks excellent English; though you may be a guest of the house for months and talk in English daily with your artist-neighbour across the table, and not know that she understands a word of what you say,—which surely indicates great strength of mind on the part of this estimable woman, though the circumstance has proved embarrassing.

In this connection it is curious to note the influx of English words into the Gallic tongue. Most of these words have been taken up by the world of sport and fashion, and have not yet reached the common people.

One can, if he is ingenious, carry on quite a conversation with a young man about town, whom one may meet at table d’hÔte or at a cafÉ, either at the capital or in the larger towns, without knowing a word of French, and without his realizing that he knows English.

“Gentleman,” “tennis,” and “golf”; “yacht,” “yachting,” and “mail-coach”; “garden-party,” “handicap,” and “jockey,”—all these are equally well-known and understood of the modern Frenchman. “Very smart” is heard once and again of a “swell” turnout drawn by a pair of “high-steppers.”

For clothing the Frenchman of fashion affects “waterproofs,” “snow-boots,” “leggings,” and “knickerbockers,” and he travels in a “sleeping-car” when he can afford their outrageously high charges. When it comes to his menu—more’s the pity—he too often affects the “mutton-chop” and the “beefsteak” in the “grill-room” of a “music-hall.”

The fact is only mentioned here as showing a widespread affectation, which, in a former day, was much more confined and restricted.

In the wine country, in Touraine and on the coast, you will hear the “black rot” talked of, and in Normandy, at Havre, you will see a crowd of “dockers” discussing vehemently—as only Normans can—the latest “lockout.”

All this, say the discerning French, is a madness that can be cured. “Allons, parlons franÇais!” that is the remedy; and matters have even gone so far as to form an association which should propagate the French tongue to the entire exclusion of the foreign, in the same way as there is a patriotic alliance to prevent the “invasion ÉtrangÈre.”

The Norman patois is, perhaps, no more strange than the patois of other parts of France. At any rate it is not so difficult to understand as the Breton tongue, which is only possible to a Welshman—and his numbers are few.

The Parisians who frequent Trouville revile the patois of Normandy; but then the Parisian does not admit that any one speaks the real French but he and his fellows. In Touraine they claim the same for their own capital.

Henry Moisy claims the existence, in the Norman’s common speech of to-day, of more than five thousand words which are foreign to the French language.

The Normandy patois, however, is exceedingly amusing and apropos. The author has been told when hurrying down a country road to the railway that there is plenty of time; the locomotive “hasn’t laughed yet,” meaning it had not whistled. Again at table d’hÔte, when one has arrived late, and there remains only one small fish for two persons, you may be told that you will have to put up with “oeufs À la coque” instead, as there is only “une souris À treize chats.” It is not an elegant expression, but it is characteristic.

Victor Hugo had the following to say concerning Norman French:

“Oh, you brave Normans! know you that your patois is venerable and sacred. It is a flower which sprang from the same root as the French.

“Your patois has left its impress upon the speech of England, Sicily, and Judea, at London, Naples, and at the tomb of Christ. To lose your speech is to lose your nationality, therefore, in preserving your idiom you are preserving your patriotism.”

“Yes, your patois is venerable and your first poet was the first of poÈtes franÇais:

The following compilation of Norman idioms shows many curious and characteristic expressions. The definitions are given in French, simply because of the fact that many of them would quite lose their point in translation.

With the English tourist, at least, the Norman patois will not cause dissension, if indeed he notices it at all—or knows what it’s all about, if he does notice it.

Every intelligent person, of course, is fond of speculating as to the etymology of foreign words and phrases; and in France he will find many expressions which will make him think he knows nothing at all of the language, provided he has learned it out of school-books.

Many a university prize-winner has before now found himself stranded and hungry at a railway buffet because he could not make the waiter understand that he wanted his tea served with milk and his cut of roast beef underdone.

French colloquialism and idiom are the stumbling-blocks of the foreigner in France, even if he is college bred. The French are not so prolific in proverbs as the Spanish, and the slang of the boulevards is not the speech of the provincial Frenchman. There are in the French language quaint and pat sayings, however, which now and then crop up all over France, and as an unexpected reply to some simple and grammatically well-formed inquiry are most disconcerting to the foreigner.

A Frenchman will make you an off-hand reply to some observation by stating “C’est vieux comme le Pont Neuf,” meaning “it’s as old as the hills,” and “bon chat, bon rat,” when he means “tit for tat,” or “sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

If you have had a struggle with your automobile tire, or have just escaped from slipping off the gangplank leading from a boat to the shore, you might well say in English, “That was warm work.” The Frenchman’s comment is not far different; he says, “L’affaire a ÉtÉ chaude.” “Business is business” is much the same in French, “Les affaires sont les affaires,” and “trade is bad” becomes “Les affaires ne marchent pas.” “He is a dead man,” in French, becomes, “Son affaire (or son compte) est fait.” The Frenchman, when he pawns his watch, does not “put it up” with his uncle, but tells you, “J’ai portÉ ma montre chez ma tante.” “Every day is not Sunday” in its French equivalent reads, “Ce n’est pas tous les jours fÊte.”

“He hasn’t an idea in his head” becomes “Il a jetÉ tout son feu,” and, paradoxically, when one gets a receipt from his landlord that individual writes, “pour acquit.”

A fortune, in a small way, awaits the person who will evolve some simple method of teaching English-speaking people how to know a French idiom when they meet with it. Truly, idiomatic French is a veritable pitfall of phrase.