Some old established shops there are, with prestige so secure that they do not have recourse to the art known as “dressing the windows”; it is the customers who seek them out, not they who try to attract the customers. Something of this kind may be said of Bayeux, for of all simple unpretending towns it is the chief; anyone who entered the long straggling street unforewarned, would imagine that he was in some humble village, and yet Bayeux ranks high among Norman towns. After Rouen, admittedly the capital, and Caen, so much larger than herself, she assuredly, for importance, antiquity, and all those things that go to make the fame of a city, comes third.

The first sight of the cathedral strikes one with astonishment; it is so composite, so decorative, that it takes one’s breath away. There is a feeling of hopelessness—one will never be able to understand it. And even after some study it remains almost impossible to analyse the architecture as one generally can analyse a cathedral, setting down the nave to one age, the choir to another, and perhaps the western towers to a third.

The great central tower rests on a square decorated platform, and is carried up two lantern stages above it; the top one is surmounted by a copper cupola. The upper stage was added in 1860, and is unfortunately quite ugly. Features which add much to the appearance of the exterior are the richly decorated portals; that of the south transept is carved with figures representing scenes in the life of St Thomas À Becket, who at the time it was done had been dead for more than thirty years, and was among the most popular of saints. The great portal at the west end, however, surpasses it in beauty; in it are no less than five doorways, diminishing in size from the centre; and seen beneath the fine western towers, it forms a feature in a view of the exterior by no means the least attractive.

The oldest church on this site was burnt down in 1046, and rebuilt by Bishop Odo, Arlotta’s son by her second marriage. It was consecrated with great ceremony in the same year as St Etienne of Caen, and in the beginning of the next century again suffered by fire. But the greater part of the cathedral as we see it, dates from the reconstruction in 1205 by an Englishman named Henry Beaumont, and as has been said, the tower was only completed recently. It is well to enter from the west, and to seat oneself at the very end of the nave, in order to observe best the cathedrals greatest peculiarity, namely, the strange carving on the spandrils and interstices of the pillars. The patterns vary from diaper work to overlapping scales, and clothe the walls richly. Between the arches are shields with the strangest collection of figures, a dragon, an Anglo-Saxon man, and other devices, showing a wide range of thought on the part of the sculptor. The pillars themselves, which rise into Norman arches, are all of one pattern, what may be called the fascicle or bundle of small shafts forming one whole. As in every church whose growth ran throughout several centuries, the Early Pointed style caps the Norman work; and here pointed clerestory windows rise above those splendid arches. The arches are decorated with various devices, among which we see an unsurpassed example of the beakhead moulding. The choir stands over the crypt, and both the transepts are on the lower level—a beautiful idea, which gives an appearance of loftiness and elegance in looking up toward the east. The vista is, however, unfortunately blocked by a heavy altar at the chancel step. This peculiarity in the level of the choir, and the fantastic carving in stone, are the two most notable features in the building, as the stained glass is not very attractive.

It was in this great church that William wrested from Harold the deadly oath on which he partly based his own right to the throne of England—an oath extorted by fear and partly by fraud, and the breaking of which, by even the most malevolent of Harold’s foes could hardly be accounted to him for wickedness. The scene is depicted in the Bayeux tapestry, fully described in the next chapter.

On this same wide green space there is a statue to Alain Chartier the poet, a native of Bayeux, the “most distinguished Frenchman of letters in the fifteenth century,” who also bears the reputation of having been the ugliest man of his time. He was born at Bayeux between 1380–90, and became highly popular by his verse. Margaret, wife of the Dauphin, is said to have kissed him as he lay asleep, for the sake of all the beautiful things that had proceeded from his lips; and it is probably the record of that kiss rather than his poems which has kept his memory alive.

One of the charms of Bayeux is the number of its famous old carved houses, which more than anything else carry us back into the streets of the past. One of the most notable of these, with innumerable statues on its frontage, is to be seen in the Rue St Malo, another, plain but very substantial, and having several features of its own tending to give it individuality, is in the Rue St Martin.

This is at the corner of the main street, and turning up it we may go to the open space where the market is held. If we are fortunate enough to visit the town on a Saturday, we shall see this long, narrow, cobble-paved street literally flecked with the little tight white caps, which are all that remains of the national headdress. These are not worn by very young girls, but are assumed after the first communion, when the child is supposed to have become a young woman. The fact of wearing the first “bonnette,” as the cap is called, is very serious, and not to be lightly considered. The invariable style is that the hair should be neatly parted in the middle and smoothed back, flattened down, while a tight-fitting bit of muslin is drawn over the head and set into a band of muslin, which is again mounted on one of plain black velvet; the only jaunty part of the headdress is the white muslin bow at the back, which bobs up and down like a rabbits scut, and when a number of women are talking together, the bobbing sometimes becomes quite laughable.

The rest of the women’s costume is of the usual peasant type, stuff jacket-bodices or blouses; full, all-round stuff skirts, well off the ground; check aprons of blue, or mauve, or grey, and among them all there is a strong family likeness. We see the same good-humoured commonplace face again and again; there is shrewdness in the keen eyes and sensible mouths, health in the smooth brown-red cheeks, and a certain comeliness notwithstanding the homely features. One feels sure that if one asked a question an intelligent answer would be given, for these women habitually use their brains as well as their hands in all their daily occupations. Here and there one sees a young girl with a much fluted upstanding edging to her cap, and perhaps a pair of white muslin strings elaborately tied under her chin, but where such a one appears she is recognised as being uncommonly fashionable, and respectfully admiring glances follow her self-conscious figure.

The men in this district have a great partiality for pearl buttons about the size of a sixpence, with which they stud the fronts of their smocks, sometimes in double and treble rows. They are big, broad-shouldered fellows these brothers by blood to the men of the CÔtentin, and are more akin to ourselves than to the Frenchmen of Rouen, for the Danish blood and speech lingered on in Bayeux when the west of Normandy had been Frenchified.

The market is surrounded by a thick hedge of limes, and here is sold the usual assortment of everything in daily use, from boots to bonnet pins. The only thing which would strike a stranger as novel are the enormous masses of butter, fitted into cylindrical hampers, and so heavy that it takes two men to move them at all.

Later on the crowd thins down, and a steady stream sets in toward the station. The women laden with enormous baskets carried by leather straps, and sometimes holding large red cotton umbrellas, compare notes as to the days events. At the station nearly every one, man and woman alike, invests in a paper for Sunday reading before they disperse to their homes on the flat plains of the Bessin. Some to go to homely cottages, others it may be to those castles fallen from their high estate, such as Argouges, once the fortress-dwellings of the highest nobles in the land.

Less than ten miles westward from Bayeux is Formigny, one of the historic battlefields of Normandy; it ranks with Val-Ès-Dunes, Tinchebray, and MortÈmer. It was in 1450, when all Upper Normandy was already in the hands of Charles VII. of France, that a desperate effort was made to save Lower Normandy from the same fate. The English landed at Cherbourg and marched on into the Bessin; they were met and defeated at Formigny, and the battle was the final stroke that severed Normandy from England.

In a book like the present it would be as difficult as it would be futile to attempt to give in detail an account of every town. Those already described give the atmosphere of the country, and to go further would be wearisome, or lead to repetition, for in many of the towns the same features reappear. In Lisieux, prettily situated amid its broken green hills, we have a fine cathedral, which shares to the full in that irregularity so often found in Norman churches. One tall spire springs from a platform base, and its companion ends in a conical stumpy gable. The manufacturing part of the town lies mostly south of the railway, and the wonderful carved wooden houses which attract visitors from all parts reproduce the best features of those already noted elsewhere.

In a town like Evreux, we may see the narrow streets and cool green sun-shutters, with the stately cathedral rising over the roofs, its grey majesty softened to beauty by the lace-like fretwork. Down by a canal-like feeder of the river Iton, in a part reminiscent of the Cambridge “backs,” is the AllÉe des Soupirs, under whispering limes; by the river also are the washing-sheds, with tiled floors, where women and girls wring and beat and twist all day long, chattering the while, as if the perpetual dipping of hands and arms in the ice-cold water and the bending of backs were a mere game. Under the limes on a market day the usual Norman crowd can be seen. The prevailing tone of colour is blue—blue blouses, blue bodices, blue check aprons. Now and then a gendarme strolls down the centre, looking like a gorgeously coloured fly in his bright uniform. All the promenaders passing to and fro are in list slippers, which speaks volumes for the dryness of the climate; and none of the women wear hats, and only a few caps or folded cotton handkerchiefs.

The typical Norman town is for the most part irregularly built; we do not find the formal squares and straight streets to be met with in Touraine. There is almost always a cathedral, varying a little in its beauty, but at the worst wonderful. There is very often a barracks, and an open dusty space for the drill; and the other public buildings, the PrÉfecture, and Palais de Justice, if the town be the centre of its district, the Hotel de Ville, the public library, the MusÉe, the Mairie, according to its status. There is generally a river, sometimes very small, and an open space or two wherein wayfarers may sit.

We may spring northwards to Pont Audemer, where we shall find some features in common with many Norman towns, and some peculiar to itself. We may go there on a Monday, for Monday is market day, and we shall find the wide street before the splendid old church filled with stalls—indeed, here, as ever in Normandy, the wonder is, where everyone is a vendor, who buys; perhaps it is a disguised form of barter. The men are good-looking as a rule, though the strong admixture of French blood has produced a race in which there are few of the characteristics of their countrymen further west. One sees all sorts, of course, but the type which might be selected as predominant is that of a slightly built, fairly tall man, with straight marked features, abundant hair showing strong tendency to curl, on head and lips; dark eyed and dark complexioned, good-looking, merry genial fellows, they are a sun-loving race. It makes a splendid picture this open-air market. The church with its great tower at the west end, carved and enriched, speaks of the richest period of the fifteenth century. By the grand western door are many decorative niches for saints, now empty.

Perhaps the western sun has fallen sufficiently to cast the long shadows of the odd medley of houses facing the cathedral over the rough cobbled street, and thereby to render the contrast of all that gallant fretwork, picked out, illuminated, and gilded by his splendour, all the grander. Within, the church is magnificent—and heartrending. Surely never in any other Catholic church, where loving hands are usually ready to perform devout offices, was more dirt seen.

There is rich stained glass of the fifteenth century in the side aisles. But for those who prefer their architecture unembellished, there is plenty here. The chancel was built at least two centuries before the nave, and is plain indeed. Heavy and solid arches, comparatively low, and somehow lacking the grace that usually appertains to this style, enclose the chancel. The singularly low central arch is not in line with the nave.

The main street crosses a narrow bridge, beneath which the quickly running current of the Rille or Risle flows. Both above and below, there is such a medley of picturesqueness and decay as surely never was seen more condensed before.

Gable-ended, timber-framed houses, with projecting stories, overhang the flood; beams discoloured and all but fallen to pieces, jut out in all directions; here the red brick walls catch a glimmer of the departing sun, there the flap of a bit of wet linen reveals a kneeling woman in one of the little washing-places on the lip of the river. Here a thatched gable projects like a huge hood; there black darkness shows a tiny court.

Some fifteen miles from Pont Audemer, in the valley of the Rille, are the ruins of the famous Abbey of Bec, which takes rank with the JumiÈges and FÉcamp, and others of their class. There is no remnant of the first great abbey; what are called the monastic buildings, date from the seventeenth century; they are now used as a depÔt for military stores. The tower and part of the church, rebuilt in the fifteenth century, are, however, standing, but the greater part of this magnificent building “one of the finest of its kind in France,” was overthrown at the Revolution. Bec is so closely associated with the names of its two great abbots, Lanfranc and Anselm, successive Archbishops of Canterbury, that it is impossible to pass them over here without mention. Lanfranc was an Italian, born at Pavia in the first years of the eleventh century. He had a genius for attracting and influencing young men with a desire for learning, and his following was soon a large one. He crossed over into France and settled at Avranches, where he founded a college. In the course of a journey to Rouen he was seized and robbed in the woods near JumiÈges, and was left bound to a tree for the whole night. In the morning when released, he found, not far off, a humble abbey which had been raised by the piety of one Herlouin. He was greatly influenced by this incident, and abandoned his scholastic career to become a monk. But his great genius for teaching could not be hidden; scholars flocked to him, and as all the money he earned by this avocation went into the common fund, the monastery grew and flourished. But the holy man had a bitter tongue, and he made enemies who maligned him to Duke William, so that at last he was sentenced to banishment. The well-known story goes that Lanfranc, stumbling along on a worn old horse, met the duke, who caused him to be upbraided for not having already gone; he made answer in all good humour, that if the duke would give him a better horse he would depart faster. William was pleased with his ready wit, and did not forget him. While in Rome, the prelate was able to be of some service to his royal master in pleading his cause with the Pope, who was angry with William for marrying his cousin, and when the two great abbeys of Caen were built in expiation of this fault, Lanfranc was installed as first abbot in St Etienne. He then became Archbishop of Rouen, and after the Conquest, Archbishop of Canterbury. During his rule a fire destroyed the cathedral at Canterbury, and the rebuilding was due to him. In the new cathedral he crowned William II. in 1087. Two years later he died. His great successor, Anselm, was some thirty years younger; he was also an Italian, born at Aosta; he followed very closely in Lanfranc’s steps, going first to Avranches, and then to Bec, where he succeeded Lanfranc in the abbacy. It was he for whom William cried in his last illness; but Anselm was also ill, and could not travel speedily, and the king was dead before his arrival. He was forced by William II. to accept the Archbishopric of Canterbury, but he shrank so much from the office that it is said the pastoral staff was actually thrust into his hand, and his fingers savagely closed upon it so that he could not drop it. His quarrels with William II. belong to the history of England. He died in 1109.

Passing now to the west of Normandy, we find St Lo, Coutances, Granville, and Avranches forming a group with features in common. They are all picturesque, all worth seeing; but with the exception of Avranches, poised upon its rock, there is no peculiar feature which, like the Bayeux tapestry, the carved houses at Lisieux, and the twin abbeys of Caen, draws visitors. St Lo is on different levels, and the river Vire which flows through it is of a considerable width for a Norman river, therefore pretty peeps can be seen in many directions. There is, of course, a cathedral, dating from thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, and also an old church, named, so the story goes, in accordance with the advice of St Thomas À Becket, who was passing through the town while it was being built. He suggested it should be dedicated to the first saint who should shed his blood for the Church, and as he was himself murdered shortly afterwards, the dedication was made to him.

Not far from St Lo is the Forest of Cerisy, mentioned in connection with the Chateau of Bur. At Cerisy an abbey was founded by Robert, father of the Conqueror, and the church, which still stands, is in use, a plain and grand building resembling St Etienne. Coutances has also a cathedral and an ancient church. Its name is derived from Constantia, which we see in slightly different form in the CÔtentin, derived from the adjective Constantinus, which occurred in its description, “pagus Constantinus.” Coutances is the seat of a bishopric, and its bishops played no small part in the stirring times of old. Its bishop, Geoffrey, blessed the Norman host on its march from Senlac to Hastings. He was made Earl of Northumbria, and his estates spread through thirteen shires; “his flock and his see were little thought of.” The cathedral which stands now is later than his time. The principal features are its towers, the central one, octagonal in shape, is interesting and striking, and the two towers ending in spires at the west end, themselves spring from a forest of smaller spires. The cathedral has been called the most beautiful church in Normandy. Coutances was for long considered the chief town of the CÔtentin, which nominally extends so far south as to include it as well as Granville. Passing on to Granville, we find a coast town built on the side of a rocky promontory, and having quays and jetties and a small lighthouse. The chief charms of Granville are in its views over the bay, and the possibility of visiting the Isles of Chausey.

Of Avranches there is much more to say; with it we enter the district of the Avranchin, which now, with the CÔtentin, is included in La Manche. The town stands, to begin with, on an extraordinary hill, the spur or outpost of a range; it rises sheer from the railway at its foot: a situation to arrest the attention and stimulate memory. Then its views of the islands of Tombelaine and Mont St Michel are unrivalled, and, seen as they may be against the glory of a western sky, the setting is worthy of the jewels. Avranches has claims to historical memories of its own. On a spot known as the platform, and embracing a wide prospect of sea and sky, we find a stone inscribed to the effect that it was part of the threshold on which Henry II. knelt in humble penitential garb to be absolved from the curse of excommunication brought upon him by the murder of Becket. This is preserved from the ruins of the cathedral which, unlike most of the solid work of early Norman times, did not stand the test of time, but partly fell down, and had to be wholly dismantled in 1799.

To this town may be accredited the honour of having produced the first poet laureate, for a poet named Henry of Avranches so attracted the notice of Henry III., that he gave him a pension and attached him to the court.

Avranches was from very early times noted for its magnificent and valuable library, but in 1899 a fire broke out and destroyed many priceless MSS., among them a copy of Domesday Book in three colours.

There are still, however, 16,000 volumes in the Public Library. These public libraries are notable features in almost every town in Normandy; they do not quite correspond with the English libraries of the same heading, but rather with the cathedral or chapter libraries attached to some of our diocesan towns, and they usually have owed their foundation to the monks, for abbeys were in early times the chief seats of learning. They frequently contain very valuable MSS., and nearly always have some treasures to show. The reference rooms are lofty, well furnished, and convenient, and strangers are freely admitted. At Rouen the library contains 133,000 volumes and 3600 MSS., including several service books and missals written in the eleventh century in the Anglo-Saxon style. One missal belonged to Robert of JumiÈges, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, and to whose chronicles we owe so much of our knowledge of early Norman history; there is a Benedictional of 988, written for Æthelgar, Bishop of Selsey, and the earliest printed book is of the year 1468. The origin of the library is obscure. At the end of the twelfth century it is first mentioned as containing 160 volumes; in 1200 it was partly destroyed. The library at Bayeux holds 30,000 volumes, and that at Caen 100,000 volumes and 800 MSS. Other figures are—Lisieux, 28,000; Cherbourg, 30,000; Valognes, 20,000; Havre, 30,000, with eighth and ninth century MSS. These libraries are often housed in a part of the building of the Hotel de Ville, and should certainly be seen by any visitor who has half an hour to spare in passing through any of the above towns.