Langevin.--Length, 720 feet; mean width, 420; quant.i.ty of ground contained within the walls, two acres and a perch.]

[Footnote 95: _Recherches Historiques sur Falaise_, p. XIX. and XXIX.]

LETTER x.x.x. ROCK AND CHAPEL OF ST. ADRIEN--PONT-DE-L'ARCHE--PRIORY OF THE TWO LOVERS--ABBEY OF BONPORT--LOUVIERS--GAILLON--VERNON.

(_Mantes, August_, 1818)

The last letter which I wrote to you, was dated from Falaise. Look in the map and you will see that you now receive one from a point completely opposite. In four days we have pa.s.sed from one of the most western towns of the province, to a place situated beyond its eastern frontier; and in four more, we may almost hope to be with you again. In this hasty journey we travelled through a district which has not yet become the subject of description to you; and though we travelled with less comfort of mind, than in the early part of our tour, I am yet enabled to send you a few details respecting it.

From Falaise we went in a direct line to Croissanville: the road, which we intended to take by St. Pierre sur Dive to Lisieux, was utterly impracticable for carriages. From Croissanville to Rouen we almost retraced our former steps: we did not indeed again make a _dtour_ by Bernay; but the straight road from Lisieux to Brionne is altogether without interest.

There are two ways from Rouen to Paris: the upper, through Ecouis, Magny, and Pontoise; the lower, by the banks of the Seine. Having travelled by both of them before, we could appreciate their respective advantages; and we knew that the only recommendation of the former was, that it saved some few miles in distance; while the latter is one of the most beautiful rides in France, and the towns, through which it pa.s.ses, are far from being among the least interesting in Normandy. In such an alternative, there was no difficulty in fixing our choice, and we proceeded straight for Pont-de-l'Arche. The chalk cliffs, which bounded the road on our left, for some distance from Rouen, break near the small village of Port St. Ouen, into wild forms, and in one spot project boldly, a.s.suming the shape of distinct towers. These projections are known by the name of the rock of St. Adrien; thus called from the patron saint of a romantic chapel, a place of great sanct.i.ty, and of frequent resort with pilgrims, situated nearly mid-way up the cliff.--The chapel is indeed little more than an excavation, and is altogether so rude, that its workmanship affords no clue to discover the date of the building. Its south side and roof are merely formed of the bare rock. To the north it is screened by an erection, which, were it not for the windows and short square steeple, might easily be mistaken for a pent-house. The western end appears to display some traces of Norman architecture. The hill, which leads to this chapel, commands a view of Rouen, the most picturesque, I think, of all that we have seen of this city, so picturesque from various points. You can scarcely conceive the eagerness with which we endeavored to catch the last glimpse, as the prospect gradually vanished from our sight, or the pleasure with which we still dwell, and shall long continue so to do, upon the recollection. All round the chapel, the bare chalk is at this time tinged with a beautiful glow, from the blue flowers of the _Viola Rothomagensis_: the _Isatis Tinctoria_, the _true Woad_, is also common on the steep sides of the cliff. This plant, which is here indigenous, became, during the reign of Napolon, an object of attention with the government, as a succedaneum for indigo, at the same time that beet-root was destined to supply the continent with sugar, and salsafy, or parched wheat, to hold the place of coffee. The restoration of peace has caused the Isatis to be again neglected; but the _Reseda luteola_, or, _Dyer's woad_, is much cultivated in the neighborhood, as is the _Teasel_ for the use of the cloth manufactory.

Pont-de-l'Arche, though now a small mean town, may boast of high antiquity, if it be rightly believed to be the ancient _Pistae_, the seat of the palace erected by Charles the Bald, in which that sovereign convened councils in the years 861 and 869, and held a.s.semblies of his n.o.bles in 862 and 864; and from which, his edicts promulgated in those years, are dated. The same monarch also built here a magnificent bridge, defended at one extremity by a citadel upon a small island.--From this there seems every reason to believe that the town has derived its name; for, in a diploma issued by our Henry IInd, he calls the place _Pontem Arcis_; and its present appellation is nothing but its Latin name translated into French. The fortress at the head of the bridge was demolished about thirty years ago, at the time when Millin published his[96] account of the town. The plate attached to that account, represents one of the towers as still standing.--Though deprived of its citadel, Pont-de-l'Arche retains to the present day its walls, flanked by circular towers; and its bridge, which is the lowest stone bridge down the Seine, is a n.o.ble one of twenty-two arches, through which the river at a considerable depth below, rolls with extraordinary rapidity.

In the length of this bridge are some mills, which are turned by the stream; and the current is moderated under one of the arches, by a lock placed on the down-stream side, into which barges pa.s.s, and so proceed with security; The bridge, with its mills, forms a very picturesque object.

At a short distance from the bridge, to the left, looking towards Paris, is the _Colline des deux amans_, formerly surmounted by the priory of the same name. Of the history of the monastery nothing is known with certainty, nor is even the date of its foundation ascertained, though it is stated by Millin to be one of the most ancient in Normandy[97]. But the traditionary tale connected with this convent, forms the subject of one of the lays of _Mary of France_; and it has been elegantly translated by the late Mr. Ellis, in the introduction to his _History of our Ancient Metrical Romances_;--Du Plessis[98] is, however, of opinion, that the name of the priory is nothing more than a corruption from the words, _deux monts_, in allusion to the twin hills, on one of which it stands; or, if _lovers_ must have any thing to do with the appellation, he piously suggests that divine love may have been intended, and that the parties were no other than our Savior and the Virgin, whose images were placed over the door of the conventual church.

On the opposite side of the bridge of Pont-de-l'Arche, stand the remains of a far richer abbey, that of Bonport, of the Cistertian order, founded by Richard Coeur-de-Lion, in 1190, as an _ex voto_. The monarch, then just in possession of his crown, was indulging with his courtiers in the pleasures of the chace, and, carried away by the natural impetuosity of his temper, had plunged in pursuit of the deer into the Seine, whose rapid current brought his life into imminent danger; and he accordingly vowed, if he escaped with safety, to erect a monastery upon the spot where he should reach the sh.o.r.e. Hence, according to Le Bra.s.seur[99], the foundation, and hence the name. I ought, however, to add, that no record of the kind is preserved in the _Neustrta Pia_, nor even by Millin, who has described and figured such of the monastic buildings and monuments as had been spared at the early part of the revolution[100]. Another view of the ruins has since been published by Langlois, in the first number of a work which was intended to have comprised a long series of Norman antiquities, but was discontinued for want of encouragement. The author, whose portrait I have sent you in the course of this correspondence, is himself a native of Pont-de-l'Arche, and has subjoined to his fas-ciculus a couple of plates, ill.u.s.trative of the costume and customs of the neighborhood.--In one of these plates, an itinerant male fortune-teller is satisfying a young peasant as to the probability of her speedy marriage, by means of a pack of cards, from which he has turned up the king and queen and ace of hearts. In the other, _a cunning woman_ is solving a question by a book and key. The poor girl's sweetheart is an absent soldier, and fears and doubts are naturally entertained for his safety. To unlock the mysteries of fate, the key is attached to the ma.s.s-book, and suspended from the tip of the finger of the sybil, who reads the first chapter of the gospel of St.

John; and the invocation is answered by the key turning of _its own accord_, when she arrives at the verse beginning, "and the word was made flesh[101]."--A fine rose-window in the church of the abbey of Bonport, and two specimens of painted gla.s.s from its windows, the one representing angels holding musical instruments, supposed to be of the thirteenth century, the other containing a set of male and female heads of extraordinarily rich color, probably executed about a century later, are given by _Willemin_ in his very beautiful _Monumens Franais indits_. In the same work, you will likewise find two still more interesting painted windows from Pont-de-l'Arche; some boatmen and their wives in the Norman costume of the end of the sixteenth century, and a citizen of the town with his lady, praying before a fald-stool, bearing the date, 1621.

The church of Pont-de-l'Arche, though greatly dilapidated, is a building worth notice, in a fine style of the decorated gothic. The nave is very lofty; the high altar richly carved and gilt; the oak pulpit embossed with saints; and the font covered with curious, though not ancient, sculpture. Rich tracery abounds in the windows, which are also filled with painted gla.s.s, some of it of very good quality. Scripture history and personages occupy, as usual, the princ.i.p.al part; but in one of the windows we noticed a representation of the Seine full of islands, and the town of Pont-de-l'Arche, with a number of persons quitting it with their horses, baggage, &c. in apparent confusion. So shattered, however, is the window, that the story is no longer intelligible in its details; and fragments, quite illegible, are all that remain of the inscriptions formerly beneath it. It is probable, that the intention of the artist was to give a picture of the miseries experienced by the inhabitants at the burning of the town by our troops under Edward IIIrd.--On the south side of the church the b.u.t.tresses are enriched with canopies and other sculpture; and there was originally a highly-wrought bal.u.s.trade, ornamented with figures of children, a part of which remains.--Pont-de-l'Arche claims the merit of having been the first town in France, which acknowledged Henry IVth as its lawful sovereign, after the a.s.sa.s.sination of his predecessor, in 1589.

On leaving this place, we pa.s.sed through the forest of the same name, an extensive tract covered with young trees, princ.i.p.ally beech, oak, and birch. The soil, a mixture of chalk and gravel, is poor, and offers but little encouragement to the labors of the plough. All around us, the distant prospect was pleasantly varied with gentle hills, upon one of which, nearly in front, we soon saw Louviers, a busy manufacturing town, of about seven thousand inhabitants, who are chiefly employed in making the fine cloth of the district, which is considered superior in quality to any other in France. Spanish wool is almost exclusively used for the purpose.

Throughout the vicinity of Louviers, are the most undoubted symptoms of commercial prosperity; new houses every where erecting, and old ones undergoing improvement. But the streets of the town itself are, as usual, dirty and narrow, and the people of the lower orders more than commonly ragged and beggarly. It was impossible to mistake the nature of their occupations; so many of them had their faces and hands, and every part of their limbs and bodies that was visible, died of a bright blue.--The church at Louviers is very much injured, but very handsome; and though reduced to a nave with its four aisles it is still a s.p.a.cious edifice. The south porch, which projects boldly in the form of a galilee, is scarcely to be excelled as a specimen of pointed architecture at its highest pitch of luxuriant beauty. Yet, even in this, the saints have been torn from their pedestals by the wanton violence of the Calvinists or democrats. The central tower is square and short: it is, however, handsome. Two windows, very similar to those of the tower of St. Romain, in Rouen cathedral, light it on either side; and saints, placed under canopies, ornament the angles behind the b.u.t.tresses.--The great western door is closed, and the front defaced: the eastern end, likewise, is altogether modern.--Within, the same kind of architecture prevails as in the exterior, but the whole is so concealed, and degraded by ornaments in the worst of taste, and by painted saints in the most tawdry dresses, that the effect is disgusting. I never saw so great an array of wretched representations of the heavenly host: the stone images collected round the holy sepulchre, are even worse than those at Dieppe. Near the chapel of the sepulchre, however, are four bas-reliefs, attached to the wall, exhibiting different events in our Savior's life of good execution, and not in had taste: an open gallery of fillagree stone-work, under the central tower on the south side, is an object really deserving of admiration.

M. Langlois has engraved the gable end of an old house at Louviers, said to have belonged to the Knights Templars. We found it used as an engine-maker's shop; and neither within nor without, could we discover any thing to justify his opinion, that it is a building of the twelfth or thirteenth century. On the contrary, the windows, which are double, under a flatly-pointed arch, and are all of them trefoil-headed, would rather cause it to be considered as erected two centuries later.

The town of Louviers, though never fortified, is noticed on several occasions in history. It was the seat of the conferences between Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Philip Augustus, which ended in the treaty of 1195, defining new limits to Normandy.--It was, as I have already mentioned, one of the items of the compensation made by the same Duke to the Archbishop of Rouen, for the injury done to the church, by the erection of Chteau Gaillard.--During the wars of Edward IIIrd, "Louviers," to use the language of old Froissart, "after the battle of Caen, was soon entered by the Englishmen, as it was not closed; and they over-ran, and spoiled, and robbed it without mercy, and won great riches; for it was the chief place in all Normandy for drapery, and was full of merchandize."--And, in the subsequent warfare of the fifteenth century, this town, like the others in the duchy, was taken by our countrymen, under Henry Vth, and lost by them under his successor.--Hither the Norman parliament retired when the Huguenots were in possession of Rouen; and here they remained till the recapture of the capital.--It was probably owing in a great measure to this circ.u.mstance, that Louviers was induced to distinguish itself by a devoted attachment to the party of the league, for which it suffered severely in 1591, when it was captured and pillaged by the royalists shortly after their victory at Ivry. The town was then taken through the treachery of a priest of the name of Jean de la Tour, who received, as a recompence, a stall in the cathedral at Evreux, but was so much an object of abhorrence with his brethren, that he scarcely ever ventured to appear in his place. During the holy week, however, he attended; and it once happened, that while he was so officiating, all the canons contrived to leave the church towards the close of the psalm, which immediately precedes the _Benedictus_ at _Laudes_, so that the anthem, _Traditor autem_, which is sung with that hymn, necessarily fell to the part of de la Tour, who found himself compelled to chaunt it, to his own extreme confusion, and the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of the congregation. Irritated and mortified, the poor priest preferred his complaints to the king; but it was one thing to love the treason, and another to love the traitor; and his appeal obtained no redress.

From Louviers our next stage was Gaillon, on our road to which we pa.s.sed some vineyards, the most northern, I believe, in Normandy. The vines cultivated in them are all of the small black cl.u.s.ter grape; and the wine they produce, I am told, is of very inferior quality,--No place can appear at present more poverty-stricken than Gaillon; but the case was far otherwise before the glories of royal and ecclesiastical France were shorn by the revolution. Ducarel, who visited this town about the year 1760, dwells with great pleasure upon the magnificence of its palace and its Carthusian convent and church. Of the palace the remains are still considerable; and, after having been suffered to lie in a state of ruin and neglect from an early period in the revolution, they are now fitting up as a prison. The long inscription formerly over the gate might with great propriety be replaced by the hacknied phrase, "Sic transit gloria mundi;" for the vicissitudes of the fortune of n.o.ble buildings are strikingly ill.u.s.trated by the changes experienced by this sumptuous edifice, long proverbial throughput France for its splendor.

Philip Augustus conferred the lordship of Gaillon upon one of his captains of the name of Cadoc, as a reward for his activity in the conquest of Normandy. Louis IXth afterwards, early in the thirteenth century, ceded the town in perpetuity to the Archbishop of Rouen. St.

Louis here received by way of exchange the Chteau of Pinterville, which he bestowed upon William d'Aubergenville, whose uncle, the Bishop of Evreux, had, while chancellor of France, done much service to him and to Queen Blanche, his mother. From that time to the revolution the archbishops had their country seat at Gaillon, and enjoyed the sole right of trying civil and criminal causes within the town and its liberties. Their palace, which was destroyed during the wars of Henry Vth, in 1423, was rebuilt about a century afterwards by the munificence of the first cardinal Georges d'Amboise, one of whose successors in the prelacy, Colbert, expended, as it is said, more than one hundred thousand livres towards the embellishment of it.--Another archbishop, the Cardinal of Bourbon, founded the neighboring monastery, in the year 1571. The conventual church was destroyed by fire, through the carelessness of some plumbers, shortly after Ducarel visited it; and with it perished the celebrated monument of one of the counts of Bourbon Soissons, said to have been a master-piece of sculpture.

The limits a.s.signed to Normandy by the treaty of Louviers, made Gaillon a frontier town of the duchy; and here therefore I should take my leave of you, but that, in the prouder days of its history, Vernon was likewise swayed by the ducal sceptre. Vernon also seems peculiarly connected with England, from the n.o.ble family of the same name still flourishing, agreeably to their well-known punning motto, on your side of the water. This motto is in the highest degree inapplicable to the present state of the town, whose old and ruinous appearance looks as if it had known neither improvement nor repair for centuries. Better things might have been expected from the situation of Vernon, on the banks of the Seine, in a singularly beautiful valley, and from its climate, which is reported to be so extraordinarily healthy, that instances of individuals attaining in it the age of one hundred are not unfrequent.

The royal palace, formerly here, is now wholly swept away; and of the ancient fortifications there remains little more than a tower, remarkable for the height and thickness of its walls, a part of the castle, which, in the reign of Henry IInd, was held by the service of sixteen knights for its defence[102].--Prior to the revolution, Vernon contained five religious houses, three of them founded by St. Louis, who is said to have regarded this town with peculiar favor, and probably on that account a.s.signed it as a jointure to his queen, an honor which it has received upon more than one other occasion.

The present parish church of Vernon was collegiate. It was founded about the year 1052, by William of Vernon, and was endowed by him, at the time of its dedication, with the property called, _La Couture du Pr de Giverny_, and with a fourth part of the forest of Vernon, all which the dean and canons continued to enjoy till the revolution. This William appears to have been the first of the family who adopted the surname of Vernon. His son, Richard, by whom the foundation was formally confirmed, attended the Conqueror to England, and obtained there considerable grants. One of their descendants ceded the town in 1190 to the King of France, accepting in return other lands, according to a treaty still preserved in the royal library at Paris. The tombs of the founder, and of his namesake, Sir William de Vernon, constable of England, who died in 1467, and of many others of the family, among the rest the stately mausoleum of the Marchal de Belle Isle, were destroyed during the reign of jacobinism and terror. The portraits, however, of the Marshal and of the Duc de Penthivre, both of them very indifferent performances, were saved, and are now kept in the sacristy. The only monument left to the church is that of Marie Maignard, whose husband, Charles Maignard, was Lord of Bernires and president of the parliament of Normandy. She died in 1610. Her effigy in white marble, praying before a fald-stool, has also been spared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Elevation of the West Front of _La Dlivrande_]

The church itself is a s.p.a.cious building, consisting of a nave and two aisles, with chapels beyond, separated by lofty pointed arches, supported on cl.u.s.tered pillars, to each of which is still attached a tabernacle; but the statues have been destroyed. The choir is altogether in a different style of architecture: that portion of it which immediately surrounds the altar, is early Norman, and most probably belonged to the original structure. Its arches vary remarkably in width.

The most narrow among them are more decidedly horseshoe-shaped, than any others which I recollect to have seen.--The west front, though much mutilated, is still handsome. It is flanked by two small, very short turrets, richly ornamented.--The square central tower, capped by a conical roof, does not even equal the height of the nave, which is greatly superior to that of the choir.--Upon an eminence in the immediate vicinity of Vernon, are the remains of a Roman encampment.

With Vernon we quitted ancient Normandy: our ride thence to Mantes has been delightful; and this town, for the excellence of its buildings, for neatness, and for a general air of comfort, far excels any other which we have seen in the north of France. The name of Mantes also recals the memory of the Duc de Sully, and recals that of the Conqueror, whose life fell a sacrifice to the barbarous outrage of which he was here guilty.--But, I now lay down my pen, and take my leave of Normandy, happy, if by my correspondence during this short tour, I have been able to impart to you a portion of the gratification which I have myself experienced, while tracing the ancient history, and surveying the monuments of that wonderful nation, who, issuing from the frozen regions of the north, here fixed the seat of their permanent government, became powerful rivals of the sovereigns of France, saw Sicily and the fairest portion of Italy subject to their sway, and, at the same time that they possessed themselves of our own island, by right of conquest, imported amongst us their customs, their arts, and their inst.i.tutions, and laid the basis of that happy const.i.tution, under which, by the blessing of G.o.d, Britain is at this moment the pride and envy of the world!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 96: _Antiquits Nationales_, IV. No. 48.]

[Footnote 97: _Antiquits Nationales_, II. No. 17.]

[Footnote 98: _Histoire de la Haute Normandie_, II. p. 332.]

[Footnote 99: _Histoire d'Evreux_, p. 161.]

[Footnote 100: _Antiquits Nationales_, IV. No. 40.]

[Footnote 101: This mode of divination by the Bible and key, is also to be found among the superst.i.tions of our own country.--See _Ellis'

edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities_, II. p. 641.]

[Footnote 102: _Ducarel's Anglo-Norman Antiquities_, p. 93.--Respecting Vernon, see also _Millin, Antiquits Nationales_, III. No. 26, in which four plates, and near fifty pages of letter-press, are devoted to this town.]

APPENDIX I.

The printing of this work was just concluded, when the author was favored with drawings, accompanied with short descriptions, of the chapel of our _Lady of the Dlivrande_, near Caen, and of an ancient font at Magneville, near Valognes. For the former he is indebted to Mr. Cohen, to whom he has so often in the course of the work, had occasion to express his obligations; for the latter, to M. de Gerville, an able antiquary at Valognes. Both these subjects are of such a nature, that he is peculiarly happy to be able to add them to his imperfect account of the Antiquities of Normandy: the whole duchy does not contain a religious building more celebrated for its sanct.i.ty than the chapel; and while ancient fonts of any description are rare in the province, he doubts if another is to be found like that of Magneville, ornamented with sculpture and an inscription.

Some historians suppose, that the country situated between Caen and the sea, formed at least, a part of the Saxon sh.o.r.e of Neustria. Amongst the other ancient buildings which are found in this district, the chapel of Notre Dame de la Dlivrande, to which the Normans have resorted in pilgrimage during the last eight hundred years, is, perhaps, the most remarkable.

When the philosophers of the revolution envied the religious enjoyments of the common man, all pilgrimages were forbidden, and the road leading to our Lady's Chapel, and which, indeed, is the only high road in this part of the country, became almost impa.s.sable. Under the Emperor it was thoroughly repaired, and, as they say, by his especial order; and since the accession of the present French king, the fathers of the mission, who lose no favorable opportunity of fostering the spirit of devotion, have erected roods and tabernacles, at due distances, all along the way side.

After leaving Caen, the traveller will not fail to linger on the little hill which he ascends just after pa.s.sing by the first crucifix. Hence he enjoys a lovely prospect, such as delighted the old masters. In the foreground is the lofty cross, standing on a quadrangular pyramid of steps. The broken hollow path bending upwards round the base, is always occupied by a grotesque group of cripples and beldames, in rags and tatters, laughing and whining and praying. The horizon is bounded by long lines of grey and purple hills, nearer are fields and pastures, whilst the river glitters and winds amidst their vivid tints. Nearer still, the city of Caen extends itself from side to side, terminated at each extremity by the venerable abbeys of William and Matilda. There are no traces of work-shops and manufactories, or of their pollution; but the churches with their towers and spires rise above the houses in bold architectural ma.s.ses, and the city a.s.sumes a character of quiet monastic opulence, comforting the eye and the mind.

About four miles farther on from Caen, we reached Cambre, one of the many seignories which belonged to the very n.o.ble family of Mathan. There was a Serlo de Mathan, who appears as a witness to one of the Conqueror's charters, and the family is now represented by the present Marquis, who has recovered his chteau, and a fragment of his domain.

Cambre is also the residence of the Abb de la Rue, by whom the Marquis was educated. When they both took refuge in England, the Abb was the only protector of his pupil, who now returns the honorable obligation.

It is well known that the Abb has devoted his life to the investigation of the antiquities both of Normandy and of the Anglo-Normans. Possessing in a high degree the acute and critical spirit of research which distinguished the French archaiologists of the Benedictine school, we have only to regret, that the greater part of his works yet remain in ma.n.u.script. His _History of Anglo-Norman Poetry_, which is quite ready for the press, would be an invaluable accession to our literature; but books of this nature are so little suited to the taste of the French public, that, as yet, he has not ventured upon its publication. The collections of the Abb, as may be antic.i.p.ated, are of great value; they relate almost wholly to the history of the duchy. The chteau escaped spoliation. The portraits of the whole line of the Mathans, from the first founder of the race, in his hauberk, down to the last Marquis, in his _frisure_, are in good preservation; and they are ancient specimens of the sign-post painting usually found in old galleries. The Marquis has also a finely-illuminated missal, which belonged to a Dame de Mathan, in the fourteenth century, and which has been carefully handed down in the family, from generation to generation.

The church of Douvre, the next village, is rather a picturesque building. The upper story of the tower has two pointed windows of the earliest date. A pediment between them rests on the archivolt on either side. This is frequently seen in buildings in the circular style. The other stories of the tower, and the west front of the church are Norman; the east end is in ruins. The British name of the village may afford ground for much ethnigraphical and etymological speculation.

Saint Exuperius is said to have founded the Chapel of La Dlivrande, some time in the first century. The tradition adds, that the chapel was ruined by the Northmen,--and the statue of the Virgin, which now commands the veneration of the faithful, remained buried until the appointed time of resuscitation, in the reign of Henry Ist, when it was discovered, in conformity to established usage and precedent in most cases of miraculous images, by a lamb. Baldwin, Count of the Bessin and Baron of Douvre, was owner of the flock to which the lamb belonged. The Virgin would not remain in the parish church of Douvre, in which she was lodged by the Baron, but she returned every night to the spot where she was disinterred. Baldwin therefore understood that it was his duty to erect a chapel for her reception, and he accordingly built that which is now standing, and made a donation of the edifice to the Bishop of Bayeux, whose successor receives the ma.s.s-pennies and oblations at this very day. Some idea of the architecture of the building may be formed from the inclosed sketch of the western front. During the morning ma.s.s, the chapel was crowded with women, young and old, who were singing the litany of the Virgin in a low and plantive tone. A hymn of praise was also chaunted. It was composed by the learned Bishop Huet, and it is inscribed upon a black marble tablet, which was placed in the chapel by his direction. The country women of the Saxon sh.o.r.e possess a very peculiar physiognomy, denoting that the race is unmixed. The Norman-Saxon damsel is full and well made, her complexion is very fair, she has light hair, long eyelashes, and tranquil placid features; her countenance has an air of sullen pouting tenderness, such as we often find in the women represented in the sculptures and paintings of the middle ages. And all the girls are so much alike, that it might have been supposed that they all were sisters. As to our Lady, she is gaily attired in a Cashemire shawl, and completely covered with glaring amber necklaces and beads, and ribband knots, and artificial flowers. Many votive offerings are affixed round her shrine. The pilgrim is particularly desired to notice a pair of crutches, which testify the cure of their former owner, who lately hobbled to the Virgin from Falaise, as a helpless cripple, and who quitted her in perfect health.

Of course the Virgin has operated all the usual standard miracles, including one which may be suspected to be rather a work of supererogation, that of restoring speech to a matron who had lost her tongue, which had been cut out by her jealous husband. Miracles of every kind are very frequently performed, yet, if the truth must be told, they are worked, as it were, by deputy, for the real original Virgin suffered so much during the revolution, that it has been thought advisable to keep her in the sacristy, and the statue now seen is a restoration of recent workmanship. In order to conciliate the sailors and fishermen of the coast, the Virgin has entered into partnership with St. Nicholas, whose image is impressed on the reverse of the medal representing her, and which is sold to the pilgrims.

The country about La Dlivrande is flat, but industriously cultivated and thickly peopled. The villages are numerous and substantial. From a point at the extremity of the green lane which leads onward from La Dlivrande, six or eight church spires may be counted, all within a league's distance. By the advice of the Abb de la Rue, we proceeded to Bernieres, which is close to the sea. The mayor of the commune offered his services with great civility, and accompanied us to the church, which, as he told us, was built by Duke William. We easily gave credit to the mayor's a.s.sertion, as the interior of the nave is good Norman.