_MORTAIN--VIRE--FALAISE._
We now turn our faces towards the east, and starting again from
Avranches on our homeward journey, go very leisurely by diligence,
through Mortain and Vire to Falaise.
The distance from Avranches to Mortain is not more than twenty miles,
and takes nearly five hours; but the country is so beautiful, and the
air is so fresh and bracing, that a seat in the banquette of the
diligence is one of the most enviable in life. The roof is over-loaded
with goods and passengers, which gives a pleasant swaying motion to the
vehicle; but the road is so smooth and even that 'nobody cares'--the
rocking to and fro is soothing, and sends the driver to sleep, the
pieces of string that keep the harness together will hold for another
hour or two, and the crazy machine will last our journey at least.
We halt continually on the journey--once, for half-an-hour, literally
'under the lindens'--they are not yet in bloom, but they give out a
pleasant perfume into the dreamy air; we are again in the open country,
in the atmosphere of old historic Normandy, and bound, slowly it is
true, for the birthplace of William the Conqueror; and we can read or
sleep at pleasure, as our crazy diligence crawls up and creeps down
every hill, and stops at every cottage by the way.
On this beautiful winding road, which is carried along and between, the
ridge of hills on which Avranches stands, and commands views westward
over the bay to Mont St. Michael and eastward towards Alençon and the
plains of Orne, we only meet one or two solitary pedestrians. We are
nearly as much alone as in a Swiss pass; the scenery might be part of
the Tête Noire, and the _Hôtel de la Poste_, at Mortain, which is built
on the side of a hill over a ravine, and at which our diligence makes a
dead stop, might, for many reasons, be a posada on the Italian Alps.
If we stroll out at once, before the evening closes, we shall have time
to visit the cemetery on the rocks, to see the remains of a castle of
the Norman dukes, and above all, the superb panorama from the heights;
and we may wander afterwards into the valleys to see the cascades, the
ivy-covered rocks, and the masses of ferns; scenes so exquisite and
varied that we are lost in wonder that all these things are to be seen
in France at small trouble and cost, and that French artists have
hardly ever told us of them.[34]
That 'the country round Mortain is not known as well as it deserves,' is
a remark that cannot be too often repeated; we cannot, indeed, imagine a
more delightful district for an English artist in which to spend a
summer, and we promise him that he shall find subjects that will look as
well on the walls of the Academy as the Welsh hills, or the valleys of
Switzerland.
We are at a loss to express in words the romantic beauty of the
situation of Mortain, where we may pitch our tent, and make studies of
rocks, which will tell us more in practice, than written volumes about
these wondrous geological formations; and the clusters of ivy in the
niches, the moss and lichen, the rich colour of the boulders, the trees
in the valleys below us, the clear sky, and the sweet air that comes
across the bay, make us linger here for the beauty of the scene alone;
regardless almost of the ancient history of Mortain, of the story of its
Pagan temples, of its thirteenth-century church, and almost unmindful of
the 'Abbaye de Savigny,' eight miles off, a building which is worthy of
a special visit.
And we come away, perforce, in the evening-time from all this lovely
landscape, from the pure air, from the cascades, the rocks, and the
ferns, from everything agreeable to the senses, to the most literal,
shameful, wallowing in the mire. We have spoken, so far, only of the
scene; let add a word in very truth, about 'man and his dwelling-place.'
How shall we describe it? We are at the _Hôtel de la Poste_, and we are
housed like pigs; we (some of us) eat like them, and live even as the
lower animals. We--'_Messieurs et Mesdames_,' lords and ladies of the
creation--hide our heads in a kennel; our dirty rooms 'give' on to the
odorous court-yard; we turn our backs upon the valley which the building
almost overhangs; we can neither breathe pure air nor see the bright
landscape. Any details of the domestic arrangements and surroundings of
the _Hôtel de la Poste_ at Mortain would be unfit for these pages;
suffice it that, we are in one of the second-rate old-fashioned inns of
France, the style of which our travelled forefathers may well
remember.[35]
We have more than once been censured for saying that the French people
have little natural love for scenery, and a stilted, not to say morbid,
theory of landscape; but whilst we stay in this inn, from which we might
have had such splendid views, we become confirmed in the opinion
(formed in the Pyrenees), that the French people _do not care_, and that
they think nothing of defiling Nature's purest places. At this hotel we
are in the position of the prisoners confined aloft in the tower at
Florence; the hills and valleys are before and around us, but we are not
allowed to see them.[36]
On our road to VIRE, twenty-three miles distant, it is tempting
to make a digression to the town of Domfront (which the reader will see
on the map, a few miles to the south-east); we should do so, to see its
picturesque position, with the ancient castle on the heights, and the
town, as at Falaise, growing round its feet; also an old church at the
foot of the hill, which is considered 'one of the best and purest
specimens of Norman work to be found anywhere.'
But the route we have chosen for description, now turns northward,
passing through a still beautiful land, studded with thatched cottages,
and lighted up with the dazzling white helmets of the women who are busy
in the fields, and in the farms and homesteads. As we approach the town
of Vire, the population has evidently been absorbed into the cloth and
paper mills, for, excepting in the morning and the evening, there are
very few people abroad; we see scarcely any one, save, at regular
intervals on the road, the old cantonniers occupied in their business of
making stone-pies,[37] or a village curé at work in his garden; but we
notice that the houses are neater and better built than those near
Mortain, where grass grows luxuriantly upon them, and the roofs are
covered with coloured mosses.
The situation of Vire is one of extreme beauty (reminding us again of
Switzerland), with hills and valleys richly wooded, the trees being
larger than any we have yet seen on our route. If we had approached Vire
from the west, by way of Villedieu and St. Sever, we should have had
even finer views than by way of Mortain; but Villedieu is at present
more deplorable than Mortain in its domestic arrangements, and the inn
is to be avoided by all cleanly people; however, with the completion of
the railway from Vire to Granville, we are promised much better things.
[Illustration: CLOCK TOWER AT VIRE.]
The chief architectural object of interest at Vire is the old
clock-tower of the thirteenth century, over the Rue de Calvados, with
its high gateway, formerly called 'the gate of the Champ de Vire.'
Over this gateway (which we cannot see from the position where we have
sketched the belfry) there is a statue of the Virgin, with the
inscription, '_Marie protége la ville_.' This tower has been altered and
repaired at several periods, and, like two others near it, is too much
built up against and crowded by, what the French call '_maisons
vulgaires_,' to be well seen.
We have not spoken of the castle first, because there is little of it
left besides the keep; and the part that remains seems no longer old.
The bold promontory on which it stood is now neatly kept and 'tidied'
with smooth slopes, straight walks, and double rows of trees, pleasant
to walk upon, but more suggestive of the Bois de Boulogne than the
approach to a ruin.
It is from this promontory, or rather from what Murray calls 'this dusty
pleasure ground,' that we obtain our best view of the country westward,
towards Avranches; and from whence we can see the bold granite
formation of the rocks in the neighbourhood. We may see where the
manufacturers of cloth and paper have established their mills; and also
where, in some cases, they have had to widen out the valleys, and to cut
roads through the rocks to their works. All the streams turn
waterwheels, and many of the surrounding rocks are disfigured with cloth
'tenters.'
There are some curious half-timbered houses at Vire, and some old
streets tempting to sketch; including the house of Basselin, the famous
originator of 'vaux de Vire'--or, as they are now called, _vaudevilles_.
The inhabitants number about 9000, they are for the most part engaged in
the manufactories of the place, too busy apparently to modernise either
their costume or their dwellings; but the railway is now bringing others
to the town who will work these changes for them. Happily for them and
for us, the hills are of granite and their sides most precipitous, and
the innovators make slow progress in modernisation. At the hotels
everyone drinks cider, rather than _vin ordinaire_; and at night we are
awoke with the clatter of sabots and the voice of the watchman.
The ancient town of FALAISE, to which so many Englishmen make a
pilgrimage, as being the reputed birthplace of William the Conqueror,
can now be reached, either from Caen, Vire, or Paris, by railway; but we
who come from the west, will do well to keep to the old road; and (if we
wish to preserve within us any of the associations connected with the
place) should not have the sound of '_Falaise_' first rung in our ears
by railway porters. Both the town and castle of Falaise are situated on
high ground; and the latter, being on the side of a precipitous
eminence, may be seen for a long distance before we approach it by the
road. At Falaise, as at Lisieux, the traveller who arrives in the town
by railway, is generally surprised and disappointed, at first sight,
with its modern aspect.
'The castle of Falaise,' says M. Leduc, 'consists of a large square
Norman keep of the tenth and eleventh centuries, standing at the
steepest and highest part of a rocky eminence, with a lofty and
exceedingly fine _circular_ tower, connected with it on the south-west
by a passage; and round the whole, a long irregular line of outer wall
following the sinuosities of the hill, fortified by circular towers and
enclosing various detached buildings used by the garrison. This line of
outer wall and the circular tower is of much later date than the keep,
and the greater portion of them is not older than the fourteenth or
fifteenth century, when the castle had to withstand attacks from the
English. In the keep (it is said) William the Conqueror was born, and
they pretend to show the remains of the very room where this event took
place, as well as the identical window from which his father "Duke
Robert the Magnificent," first saw Arlette, the daughter of the Falaise
tanner.'
Here, under the shadow of 'Talbot's tower,' we might prefer to muse
historically, and gather up our memories of facts connected with the
place; but we are treading again upon 'the footsteps of the Conqueror,'
and must pay for our indiscretion. From the moment we approach the
precincts of the castle, we are pounced upon by the inevitable spider
(in this instance, in the shape of a very rough and ignorant custodian)
who is in hiding to receive his prey. Before we have time for
remonstrance, we have paid our money, we have ascended the smooth round
tower (one hundred feet high, with walls fifteen feet thick) by a
winding staircase, we have been taken out on to the modern zinc-covered
roof, and shown the view therefrom; and the spots where the various
sieges and battles took place, including the breach made by Henry IV.
after seven days' cannonade, a breach that two or three shots from an
Armstrong gun would have effected in these days.
We are shewn, of course, 'the room where William the Conqueror was
born,' and from the windows of the castle keep we have just time to make
a sketch of the beautiful Val d'Ante,[38] and of the women, with their
curiously-shaped baskets, washing in the stream; and to listen to the
thrice-told tale of the tanner's daughter, and to the deeds of valour
wrought on these heights--when the performance is declared to be over,
and we find ourselves once more on the ramparts outside the castle.
We are so full of historical associations at Falaise--every nook and
corner of the castle telling of its nine sieges--that we are glad to be
able to examine the building thoroughly from without, and to remind
ourselves of the method of defensive warfare in the fifteenth century.
The whole of the precincts of the castle, the walls, ramparts, and the
principal towers, are (at the time we write, August, 1869) strewn with
mason's work, as if a new castle of Falaise were being built; everything
looks fresh and new, it is only here and there we discover anything old,
the remnants of a carved window, and the like. But, as a Frenchman
observed to us, if it had not been for all this nineteenth-century work,
the present generation would never have seen the castle of Falaise. The
work of restoration appears to be carried on in rather a different
spirit from the ecclesiastical restorations at Caen and Bayeux; here the
prevailing idea seems to be, 'prop up your antique _any how_' (with
timber beams, and a zinc roof to Talbot's tower, such as we might put
over a cistern), so long as devotees will come and worship, with
francs, at the shrine; whilst at Bayeux, as we have seen, the old work
is handled with reverence and fear, and the nineteenth-century mason
puts out all his power to imitate, if not to excel, the work of the
twelfth.
The churches at Falaise should not pass unnoticed; but we will not weary
the reader with any detailed description. Artists will especially
delight in the view of a fourteenth-century church close to the castle,
with its chancel with creepers growing over it, and peeping out between
the stones; and historians will be interested in the laconic inscription
on its walls, 'rebuilt in 1438, a year of war, death, plague, and
famine.' If such artists as Brewer, or Burgess, would only come here and
give us drawings of these streets (of one especially, taking in the
cathedral at the end, with its stone walls built over by shops, as at
Pont Audemer), they would be very interesting to Englishmen. Antiquaries
will regret to learn that in the year 1869, the west end of a church is
obliterated, as in the next illustration; that the shop of one 'M.
Guille, peruquier,' reposes against the window, and that two other,
quite modern, buildings lean against its walls. An old Norman arch is
carved immediately above the window we have sketched, and completes the
picture.
[Illustration]
It is, of course, not very easy to sketch undisturbed in the streets of
Falaise; and both in the churches and in the castle the showman is
perpetually treading on the traveller's heels. Everywhere we turn, in
the neighbourhood of the castle, we are reminded of historic deeds of
valour, and of deadly fights in the middle ages; and every day that we
remain in the town, we are reminded (by the crowds of farmers,
horsedealers, and others, who are busy at the great fair held here twice
a year) of our own, by comparison, very trifling business at Falaise. We
are making a drawing of the great rocks near the castle, and of the
valley below, every step of which is made famous by the memory of the
Conqueror; when our studies are disturbed, not by tourists but by
natives of the town; once by a farmer to see his good horses, which
indeed he had, at the stables at the 'hotel of the beautiful Star,'
where there were at least fifty standing for sale; and once, by a small
boy, who carries a tray full of little yellow books called '_La Lanterne
de Falaise_,' with a picture on the cover of the castle tower, and a
huge lantern slung from the battlements! We purchase a copy, to get rid
of the last intruder, and find it to be a '_Revue, satirique et
humouristique_,' treating of divers matters, including '_faits atroces
et chiens perdus_'!
Now without being accused of misanthropy, we may remark that there are
times and places when an Englishman would rather be 'let alone,' and
that the precincts of Falaise are certainly of them. These century-wide
contrasts and concussions, jar so terribly sometimes, that we are
half-inclined to ask with M. de Tocqueville, whether we do not seem to
be on the eve of a new Byzantine era, in which 'little men shall discuss
and ape the deeds which great men did in their forefathers' days.'[39]
The refrain in this nineteenth century is, 'still the showman, still the
spectator,' until we become almost tired of the song. 'Here some noble
act was achieved--there some valiant man perished.' Every nook and
corner of the place tells the same story; until we are tempted to
enquire 'What are _we_ doing (or are fit and capable of doing
personally, on an emergency, in the matter of fighting,) to compare with
the achievements of these Norman men of all ranks of life?'
But not only in Normandy, it is the same wherever we go: as far as our
own personal part in heroic actions is concerned, we live in an
atmosphere of unreality; we read of great deeds rather than achieve
them, we make shows of the works of our ancestors, we take pence
(readily) over the graves of our kinsmen, and live, as it seems to us,
rather unworthily, in the past.
With our nineteenth-century inventions, we could, it is true, mow down
these castle heights in half an hour, and we might well be proud of the
achievement as a nation; but our warfare is at best but poor mercenary
work, the heart of the nation--the life and courage of its people--are
not in it.[40] We civilians, are too much protected, and most of us do
not know how to fight. Like the Athenians, we are supposed to be
cultivating the arts of peace, but, as we endeavoured to show at Caen,
if judged by our monuments, we are making no great mark in our
generation. Perhaps this is a question rather wide of our subject, but
let us at least contend for one thing, viz.:--that if the mission of the
present generation is not to wield battle-axes, but rather to fight
social battles, say for the amelioration of the unhappy part of the
population; and if it is our fortune to be protected the while, by a
staff of policemen, and by strong laws against crime--that we should not
neglect, at the same time, to cultivate and preserve the personal valour
that is in us, by the use of arms. It may be that the day is shortly
coming (our engineers predict that we shall soon have hand-to-hand
fighting again), when every individual amongst us will have to put his
courage to the proof; and if this should ever happen, it will certainly
not diminish our interest in the construction and arrangement of these
mediæval castles, or in the battles that have been fought beneath their
walls.