_PONT AUDEMER._
About one hundred and fifty miles in a direct line from the door of the
Society of British Architects in Conduit Street, London (and almost
unknown, we venture to say, to the majority of its members), sleeps the
little town of PONT AUDEMER, with its quaint old gables, its
tottering houses, its Gothic 'bits,' its projecting windows, carved oak
galleries, and streets of time-worn buildings--centuries old. Old
dwellings, old customs, old caps, old tanneries, set in a landscape of
bright green hills.[5]
'Old as the hills,' and almost as unchanged in aspect, are the ways of
the people of Pont Audemer, who dress and tan hides, and make merry as
their fathers did before them. For several centuries they have devoted
themselves to commerce and the arts of peace, and in the enthusiasm of
their business have desecrated one or two churches into tanneries. But
they are a conservative and primitive people, loving to do as their
ancestors did, and to dwell where they dwelt; they build their houses to
last for several generations, and take pride and interest in the 'family
mansion,' a thing unknown and almost impossible amongst the middle
classes of most communities.
[Illustration: MARKET PLACE, PONT AUDEMER.]
Pont Audemer was once warlike; it had its castle in feudal times
(destroyed in the 14th century), and the legend exists that cannon was
here first used in warfare. It has its history of wars in the time of
the Norman dukes, but its aspect is now quiet and peaceful, and its
people appear happy and contented; the little river Rille winds about
it, and spreads its streamlets like branches through the streets, and
sparkles in the evening light. Like Venice, it has its 'silent
highways;' like Venice, also, on a smaller and humbler scale, it has its
old façades and lintels drooping to the water's edge; like Venice, too,
we must add, that it has its odours here and there--odours not always
proceeding from the tanneries.
In the chief place of the _arrondissement_, and in a rapidly increasing
town, containing about six thousand inhabitants; with a reputation for
healthiness and cheapness of living, and with a railway from Paris, we
must naturally look for changes and modern ways; but Pont Audemer is
still essentially old, and some of its inhabitants wear the caps, as in
our illustration, which were sketched only yesterday in the
market-place.
If we take up our quarters at the old-fashioned inn called the _Pôt
d'Étain_, we shall find much to remind us of the 15th century. If we
take a walk by the beautiful banks of the Rille on a summer's evening,
or in the fields where the peasants are at work, we shall find the
aspect curiously English, and in the intonation of the voices the
resemblance is sometimes startling; we seem hardly amongst
foreigners--both in features and in voice there is a strong family
likeness. There is a close tie of blood relationship no doubt, of
ancient habits and natural tastes; but, in spite of railways and
steamboats, the two peoples know very little of each other.
That young girl with the plain white cap fitting close to her hair--who
tends the flocks on the hill side, and puts all her power and energy
into the little matter of knitting a stocking--is a Norman maiden, a
lineal descendant, it may be, of some ancient house, whose arms we may
find in our own heraldic albums. She is noble by nature, and has the
advantage over her coroneted cousins in being permitted to wear a white
cap out of doors, and an easy and simple costume; in the fact of her
limbs being braced by a life spent in the open air, and her head not
being plagued with the proprieties of May Fair. She is pretty; but what
is of more importance she knows how to cook, and she has a little store
of money in a bank. She has been taught enough for her station, and has
few wishes beyond it; and some day she will marry Jean, and happy will
be Jean.
That stalwart warrior (whom we see on the next page), sunning himself
outside his barrack door, having just clapped his helmet on the head of
a little boy in blouse and sabots, is surely a near relation to our
guardsman; he is certainly brave, he is full of fun and intelligence, he
very seldom takes more wine than is good for him, and a game at
dominoes delights his soul.
[Illustration]
But it is in the market-place of Pont Audemer that we shall obtain the
best idea of the place and of the people.
On market mornings and on fête days, when the _Place_ is crowded with
old and young,--when all the caps (of every variety of shape, from the
'helmet' to the _bonnet-rouge_), and all the old brown coats with short
tails--are collected together, we have a picture, the like of which we
may have seen in rare paintings, but very seldom realize in life. Of the
tumult of voices on these busy mornings, of the harsh discordant sounds
that sometimes fill the air, we must not say much, remembering their
continual likeness to our own; but viewed, picturesquely, it is a sight
not to be forgotten, and one that few English people are aware can be
witnessed so near home.
Here the artist will find plenty of congenial occupation, and
opportunities (so difficult to meet with in these days) of sketching
both architecture and people of a picturesque type--groups in the
market-place, groups down by the river fishing under the trees, groups
at windows of old hostelries, and seated at inn doors; horses in clumsy
wooden harness; calves and pigs, goats and sheep; women at fruit stalls,
under tents and coloured umbrellas; piles upon piles of baskets, a
wealth of green things, and a bright fringe of fruit and flowers,
arranged with all the fanciful grace of "_les dames des halles_," in
Paris.[6]
All this, and much more the artist finds to his hand, and what does the
architect discover? First of all, that if he had only come here before
he might have saved himself an immensity of thought and trouble, for he
would have found such suggestions for ornament in wood carving, for
panels, doorways, and the like, of so good a pattern, and so old, that
they are new to the world of to-day; he would have found houses built
out over the rivers, looking like pieces of old furniture, ranged side
by side--rich in colour and wonderfully preserved, with their wooden
gables, carved in oak of the fifteenth century, supported by massive
timbers, sound and strong, of even older date. He would see many of
these houses with windows full of flowers, and creepers twining round
the old eaves; and long drying-poles stretched out horizontally, with
gay-coloured clothes upon them, flapping in the wind--all contrasting
curiously with the dark buildings.
But he would also find some houses on the verge of ruin. If he explored
far enough in the dark, narrow streets, where the rivers flow under the
windows of empty dwellings; he might see them tottering, and threatening
downfall upon each other--leaning over and casting shadows, black and
mysterious upon the water--no line perpendicular, no line horizontal,
the very beau-ideal of picturesque decay--buildings of which Longfellow
might have sung as truly as of Nuremberg,--
"Memories haunt thy pointed gables,
Like the rooks which round them throng."
In short, he would find Pont Audemer, and the neighbouring town of
Lisieux, treasure houses of old mysterious 'bits' of colour and form,
suggestive of simple domestic usage in one building, and princely
grandeur in another--strength and simplicity, grace and beauty of
design--all speaking to him of a past age with the eloquence of history.
Let us look well at these old buildings, many of them reared and dwelt
in by men of humble birth and moderate means--(men who lived happily and
died easily without amassing a fortune)--let us, if we can, without too
much envy, think for a moment of the circumstances under which these
houses were built. To us, to many of us, who pay dearly for the
privilege of living between four square walls (so slight and thin
sometimes, that our neighbours are separated from us by sight, but
scarcely by sound)--walls that we hire for shelter, from necessity, and
leave generally without reluctance; that we are prone to cover with
paper, in the likeness of oak and marble, to hide their meanness--these
curious, odd-shaped interiors, with massive walls, and solid oak
timbers, are especially attractive. How few modern rooms, for instance,
have such niches in them, such seats in windows and snug corners, that
of all things make a house comfortable. Some of these rooms are twenty
feet high, and are lighted from windows in surprising places, and of the
oddest shapes. What more charming than this variety, to the eye jaded
with monotony; what more suggestive, than the apparently accidental
application of Gothic architecture to the wants and requirements of the
age.[7]
We will not venture to say that these old buildings are altogether
admirable from an architect's point of view, but to us they are
delightful, because they were designed and inhabited by people who had
time to be quaint, and could not help being picturesque. And if these
old wooden houses seem to us wanting (as many are wanting) in the
appliances and fittings which modern habits have rendered necessary, it
was assuredly no fault of the 15th-century architect. They display both
in design and construction, most conspicuously, the elements of common
sense in meeting the requirements of their own day, which is, as has
been well remarked, "the one thing wanting to give life to modern
architecture;" and they have a character and individuality about them
which renders almost every building unique. Like furniture of rare
design they bear the direct impress of their maker. They were built in
an age of comparative leisure, when men gave their hearts to the
meanest, as well as to the mightiest, work of their hands; in an age
when love, hope, and a worthy emulation moved them, as it does not seem
to move men now; in an age, in short, when an approving notice in the
columns of the 'Builder' newspaper, was not a high aspiration.
But in nothing is the attraction greater to us, who are accustomed to
the monotonous perspective of modern streets, than the irregularity of
the _exteriors_, arising from the independent method of construction;
for, by varying the height and pattern of each façade, the builders
obtained to almost every house what architects term the 'return,' to
their cornices and mouldings, i.e., the corner-finish and completeness
to the most important projecting lines. And yet these houses are
evidently built with relation to each other; they generally harmonize,
and set off, and uphold each other, just as forest trees form themselves
naturally into groups for support and protection.
All this we may see at a distance, looking down the varied perspective
of these streets of clustering dwellings; and the closer we examine
them, the more we find to interest, if not to admire. If we gain little
in architectural knowledge, we at least gain pleasure, we learn _the
value of variety in its simplest forms_, and notice how easy it would be
to relieve the monotony of our London streets; we learn, too, the
artistic value of high-pitched roofs, of contrast in colour (if it be
only of dark beams against white plaster) and of _meaning_ in every line
of construction.
These, and many more such, sheaves we may gather from our Norman
harvest, but we must haste and bind them, for the winds of time are
scattering fast. Pont Audemer is being modernised, and many an
interesting old building is doomed to destruction; whilst cotton-mills
and steam-engines, and little white villas amongst the trees, black
coats and parisian bonnets, all tend to blot out the memories of
mediæval days. Let us make the most of the place whilst there is
time--and let us, before we pass on to Lisieux, add one picture of Pont
Audemer in the early morning--a picture which every year will seem less
real.[8]
There are few monuments or churches to examine, and when we have seen
the stained-glass windows in the fine old church of St. Ouen, and walked
by the banks of the Rille, to the ruins of a castle (of the twelfth
century) at Montfort; we shall have seen the chief objects of interest,
in what Murray laconically describes as, 'a prettily situated town of
5400 inhabitants, famed for its tanneries.'
_Early morning at Pont Audemer._
That there is 'nothing new under the sun,' may perhaps be true of its
rising; nevertheless, a new sensation awaits most of us, if we choose
to see it under various phases. The early morning at Pont Audemer is the
same early morning that breaks upon the unconscious inhabitants of a
London street; but the conditions are more delightful and very much more
picturesque; and we might be excused for presenting the picture on the
simple ground that it treats of certain hours of of the twenty-four, of
which most of us know nothing, and in which (such are the exigencies of
modern civilization) most of us do nothing.
[Illustration: OLD HOUSES, PONT AUDEMER.]
A storm passed over the town one night in August, which shook the great
rafters of the old houses, and made the timbers strain; the water flowed
from them as from the sides of a ship--one minute they were illuminated,
the next, they were in blackest gloom. In two or three hours it has all
passed away, and as we go out into the silent town, and cross the street
where it forms a bridge over the Rille (the spot from which the next
sketch was taken), a faint gleam of light appears upon the water, and
upon the wet beams of one or two projecting gables. The darkness and the
'dead' silence are soon to be disturbed--one or two birds fly out from
the black eaves, a rat crosses the street, some distant chimes come upon
the wind, and a faint clatter of sabots on the wet stones; the town
clock strikes half-past three, and the watchman puts out his lantern,
and goes to sleep. The morning is breaking on Pont Audemer, and it is
the time for surprises--for the sudden appearance of a gable-end, which
just now was shadow, for the more gradual, but not less curious,
formation of a street in what seemed to be space; for the sudden
creation of windows in dead walls, for the turning of fantastic shadows
into palpable carts, baskets, piles of wood, and the like; and for the
discovery of a number of coiled-up dogs (and one or two coiled-up men)
who had weathered the night in sheltered places.
But the grey light is turning fast to gold, the warmer tints begin to
prevail, the streets leading eastward are gleaming, and the hills are
glistening in their bright fresh green.[9] The sweet morning air
welcomes us as we leave the streets and its five thousand sleepers, and
pass over another bridge and out by the banks of the Rille, where the
fish are stirring in the swollen stream, and the lilies are dancing on
the water. The wind blows freshly through the trees, and scatters the
raindrops thickly; the clouds, the last remnant of the night's storm,
career through a pale blue space, the birds are everywhere on the wing,
cattle make their appearance in the landscape, and peasants are already
to be seen on the roads leading to the town.
Suddenly--with gleams of gold, and with a rushing chorus of insect life,
and a thousand voices in the long grass on the river's bank--the day
begins.[10] It is market-morning, and we will go a little way up the
hill to watch the arrivals--a hill, from which there is a view over town
and valley; the extent and beauty of which it would be difficult to
picture to the reader, in words. Listen! for there is already a
cavalcade coming down the hill; we can see it at intervals through the
trees, and hear men's voices, the laughter of women, the bleating of
calves, and the crushing sound of wheels upon the road. It is a peaceful
army, though the names of its leaders (if we heard them), might stir up
warlike memories--there are Howards and Percys amongst them, but there
is no clash of arms; they come of a brave lineage, their ancestors
fought well under the walls of Pont Audemer; but they have laid down
their arms for centuries--their end is commerce and peace.
Let us stand aside under the lime trees, and see them pass. But they are
making a halt, their horses go straight to the water-trough, and the
whole cavalcade comes to a stand; the old women in the carts (wearing
starched caps a foot high) with baskets of eggs, butter, cheeses, and
piles of merchandise, sit patiently until the time comes to start again;
and the drivers, in blouses and wooden sabots, lounge about and smoke,
or sit down to rest. The young girls, who accompany the expedition and
who will soon take their places in the market, now set to work
systematically to perform their toilettes, commencing by washing their
feet in a stream, and putting on the shoes and stockings which they had
carried during their wet march; then more ablutions, with much fun, and
laughter, and tying up of tresses, and producing from baskets of those
wonderful caps which we have sketched so often--_soufflés_ of most
fantastic shape and startling dimensions. This was the crowning work,
the picture was complete: bright, fresh, morning faces, glowing under
white caps; neat grey or blue dresses with white bodices, or coloured
handkerchiefs; grey stockings, shoes with buckles, and a silver cross, a
rosary, or a flower. We must not quite forget the younger men (with
coats, not blouses), who plumed themselves in a rough way, and wore
wonderful felt hats; nor, above all, a peep through the trees behind the
group, far away down the valley, at the gables and turrets of Pont
Audemer, glistening through a cloud of haze. This is all we need
describe, a word more would spoil the picture; like one of Edouard
Frère's paintings of "Cottage Life in Brittany," the charm and pathos of
the scene lie in its simplicity and harmony with Nature.
If we choose to stay until the day advances, we may see more
market-people come crowding in, and white caps will crop up in the
distance through the trees, till the green meadows blossom with them,
and sparkle like a lawn of daisies; we may hear the ringing laughter of
the girls to whom market day seems an occasion of great rejoicing, and
we may be somewhat distracted with the steady droning patois of the old
women; but we come to see rather than to hear, and, returning to the
town for the last time, we take our station at the corner of the
market-place, and make a sketch of a group of Norman maidens who are
well worth coming out to see.
[Illustration]