CAEN
The admirers of Caen rank it high. Mr Freeman says: “Caen is a town
well-nigh without a rival. It shares with Oxford the peculiarity of
having no one predominant object. At Amiens, at Peterborough--we
may add at Cambridge--one single gigantic building lords it over
everything; Caen and Oxford throw up a forest of towers and spires
without any one building being conspicuously predominant. It is a
town which never was a Bishop’s See, but which contains four or five
churches each fit to have been a cathedral.”
It is quite true that in the richness of its churches Caen rivals
Rouen. And if we except the splendid abbey of William and Matilda
which flank each end of the town, most of these churches belong to the
fifteenth century, and show the marvellous combination of grace and
strength, of richness without tawdriness, in which the workmen of that
date were unrivalled. After its churches, the most notable feature in
Caen is its collection of Renaissance dwelling-houses, called hotels,
which are to be found here and there--but not always conspicuously--in
its streets. Beyond the churches and hotels, Caen is not otherwise a
mediæval town; though many of the streets are narrow and old-fashioned,
they do not contain anything like the same number of carved and
timber-framed houses as are to be found at Rouen. There are a few of
these to be seen, lying for the most part in the narrow streets at the
west end of St Pierre. The Maison des Quatrains in the Rue de Geoles
is one which visitors most frequently find; it is a large timber house
in excellent preservation, but of plain design; on the tower in the
court is the date 1541, though the house itself is older than this. A
far more fascinating example is to be seen in the little steep street
going up to the castle. This house is small, and no line is in its
right plane; it looks as if it would very soon fall down altogether,
yet it is carved everywhere, with human figures and faces, all animated
by that diablerie and wicked mirth which the carvers of the Middle Ages
seem to have been able to pour forth from their tools at will.
Beautiful bits and picturesque corners are to be found in Caen in
plenty, as in every continental town with a long history, but they are
different in kind from those we see in Rouen. The most beautiful part
of all the town is to be found around that famous church, St Pierre.
Shady horse-chestnuts in all the glory of delicate foliage and fresh
pink flower, show up in contrast with the towering fretwork pinnacles
of the church. Close by, a tram crowded with people going home from
work stops for a moment, to fill up every foot of space on its two cars
before it winds slowly away, toot-tooting to clear the lines.
The pavement near at hand is covered with flowerpots in bloom, azaleas,
roses, cinerarias, pelargonium, and fuchsia, showing flashing lights
like those of some rich window of stained glass, and the foot traffic
flows round about the impediment tranquilly; for in all foreign towns
every shopkeeper seems to have a prescriptive right to the bit of
pavement before his door.
In front of the church is a space of green grass, with seats and a cool
basin of water. The evening sun, which has now left in shadow all the
base of the masonry, picks out the lines and curves and angles of the
parapet and the buttresses above, those wonderful flying buttresses
with bossy pinnacles; it shows up the stiff, eternally yearning
gargoyles, and the red-tiled roof. High above, up against the brilliant
clearness of a pale-blue sky, swallows skim and wheel around one of the
most graceful and perfect spires ever man devised or wrought.
Opposite to the church, in the depth of grey evening shadow, is the
great Hotel de Valois or Escoville, a Renaissance palace, built early
in the sixteenth century. The lower part is occupied by a row of shops;
above rise small engaged pillars, between which are the lofty windows,
now cut into two stages. In the courtyard all is gloom and dirt; a huge
scaffolding covers most of the building, and grimly down from those
once princely walls look the gigantic statues of David and Judith, each
carrying the gory burden of a head!
Above, but difficult to see without a crick in the neck, is a lantern
tower in two stages, recalling a little the famous domes of Chambord.
There was formerly the figure of a white horse carved on the stone
above the principal door, and the symbol exercised greatly the
imaginations of antiquarians, some of whom went so far as to see in it
the Pale Horse of Revelation. In some lines written on the hotel by M.
de Brieux, we read:--
“Lorsqu’on porte les yeux dessus chaque figure,
Qui lui sert au dedans de superbe ornament
On croit être deçu par quelque enchantement
A cause des beauté de leur architecture.”
The house was built in 1585 by Nicholas de Valois, Sieur d’Escoville,
the richest man in the town, who died even as he entered into
possession; for, the first time he seated himself at table in his new
dwelling he was choked by an oyster, at the early age of forty-seven.
This hotel, with many other buildings in Caen, is attributed to Hector
Sohier, the architect of part of St Pierre, and it is supposed that he
carried on the two great buildings that faced one another--the church
and hotel--partly at the same time.
In most Norman towns the first object for which the visitor seeks
is the cathedral, and the second the castle. Caen has no cathedral;
and though it has a castle, no one can see it, for it is used as a
barracks, and entrance is forbidden. In any case the castle is not at
all evident; it stands on no great elevation, and has to be sought for
by a narrow back street. Yet it has seen many a spirited historical
feat, and been through not a few sieges. From time immemorial a fort
of some kind has stood upon the site, but it was William--the great
William--who founded the present building. On his death the castle
formed one of Robert’s most important strongholds, and it was from
thence he started out on his crusading expedition. On his return he
made Caen his headquarters, and added greatly to the fortifications
in prospect of being attacked by his brother Henry. Yet when Robert
was overthrown at Tinchebray, these very defences fell into Henry’s
hands, and served him against whom they had been intended. That the
town was of great importance then, was shown by the fact that when
Henry established two permanent exchequers, one for England and one
for Normandy, it was at Caen and not at Rouen the latter was placed.
Caen was one of Henry’s favourite residences; here was born his eldest
son Robert, afterwards Earl of Gloucester, whose mother was Nesta, the
Welsh girl who managed to hold the king’s affections so long. In days
when loyalty was a rare virtue, Robert proved himself throughout his
life a loyal brother, and the Empress Maud owed much to his strong
arm and good faith. John took refuge at Caen after the murder of his
nephew, but he soon had to retreat, and the city opened its gates
to Philip Augustus in 1204. However it was not destined to remain
consistently French, for it was besieged by Edward III. in 1346, when,
according to Froissart, the town “était grosse et forte, pleine de
très-grande draperies et de toutes marchandises et de riches bourgeois
et de noble dames et de belles églises.” After a stern resistance this
rich prize fell into the hands of the English, who pillaged it for
three days, and reaped a magnificent harvest of “draperies” and other
goods, so that many stout ships were sent laden across to England. It
however reverted again to the French, and was subject to another siege
under Henry V., when, with the rest of Normandy, it remained attached
to the English crown from 1417 to 1450. It was at this time Henry
founded the famous university, which continued to flourish throughout
the change in the town’s ownership. After 1450 the castle was twice
besieged by the French themselves, during the Protestant wars.
[Illustration: THE MILK CARRIER]
So much for a rough sketch of its history. But Caen belonged far more
than this to the personal history of William the Conqueror, who had
particular reasons for loving it. When he and Matilda, his wife, had
agreed to rear two abbeys in penance for the sin of having married
though they were first cousins, it was at Caen that they established
their twin abbeys, one at the north and the other at the south end of
the town.
William’s abbey indeed was begun in 1066, the year in which he had
established himself as supreme in a wider sphere than Normandy, and he
doubtless returned to the scene of the work with none the less interest
because of his larger experience. There is a little vagueness about the
date when the sister abbey was actually begun; some say in 1062, which
would make it slightly in advance of St Etienne, and it seems to have
been consecrated in 1066, while St Etienne was not consecrated until
1077, when the ceremony was performed by Lanfranc, who had been brought
from Bec to be the first abbot, but had been rapidly advanced to the
Archbishopric of Canterbury, which at the time of the consecration he
had held for seven years.
The opening ceremony was an occasion of great solemnity, and the king
with his queen and eldest son Robert, then in early manhood, were all
present. The church was not at first exactly as we see it now, for the
two mighty western towers, grandly simple, had no spires, which were
added in the fourteenth century. In William’s time also the church was
shorter, ending in an apse. The present choir dates from a couple of
centuries after that fine opening scene, and is of the Pointed, not the
Roman, or as we call it, the Norman, style like the nave.
Could William, when seated on his throne, with his wife and son by his
side, overlooking that vast crowd of nobles, knights, and commoners, to
whom his lightest word was law, have gazed ahead into the grim mystery
of the future, he would have seen a far other picture. A lonely death,
with his son a traitor, and himself deserted, at last to be hastily
and ignominiously buried by the charity of the monks, whose munificent
patron he had been. Could he have seen such a vision, the realities of
power and place might have seemed less pleasantly substantial to him!
None of the Conqueror’s sons are buried in the abbey, though the bones
of the youngest, Henry, rested for nearly a month before the high
altar, waiting for a favourable wind by which they could be taken over
to England for burial.
Close by the abbey William built a palace, where now stands the École
Normande; nothing of the palace remains, though a later building which
succeeded it has been partly adapted for the school.
The earlier kings of the Norman race seem to have resided at palace or
castle indifferently while at Caen. The abbey grew and flourished. It
was at the height of its power in the twelfth century, but was totally
ruined in the religious wars at the end of the sixteenth.
The large building, called the Lycée, to the east of the church, dates
from 1726, and a Gothic hall, used as a gymnasium, dating from the
fourteenth century, is considered to have been once part of the abbey.
Matilda’s Abbaye aux Dames, or St Trinité, has one great advantage
over St Etienne--it can be seen to advantage from the broad open space
which lies before it. The church, like the other, has two western
towers, but they are more decorative, not so grand and stern as those
of St Etienne, and show a charming and original feature in the row of
oval openings beneath the parapet. The windows are long, narrow, and
round-headed. Matilda’s church, as well as William’s, is one of the
purest remaining examples of Norman work. The husband and wife were
parted in death: he lies at St Etienne, and she here. Their love was
genuine in an age when wedded love was a rarity, more especially with
kings; but they were bitterly estranged in their quarrels over their
sons before the end came. Matilda died four years before her husband,
and her grave may be looked on with reverence as that of the ancestress
of all succeeding sovereigns who have held the English crown.
The city hospital buildings, dating from 1726, occupy the site of the
convent which Matilda founded for gentlewomen of the highest rank,
and of which her own eldest daughter, Cecily, was the first abbess.
It is said that she was dedicated to this office at the time of the
consecration of the church in 1066, when she can only have been about
twelve or thirteen years of age.
After the two great abbeys, and perhaps before them, in the minds of
many, comes that jewel of the fifteenth century, St Pierre, of which
the exterior has already been slightly described. The chief feature
is the towering spire, so pierced as to give a fairy-like appearance
of elegance, and yet so firm in its lines as to produce a powerful
impression of strength. This spire was built in the beginning of the
fourteenth century, on the foundation of an earlier one. The nave
followed, and the choir was completed about 1521. But in spite of the
two centuries over which the building spread, the whole design is
emphatically of one style and time, of which it forms one of the most
brilliant examples. In the two disused churches in Caen, St Etienne
the Less and St Gillies, we may see the same design and style in the
pierced parapet, the flying buttresses, and the decorated pinnacles;
though parts of these churches are of the twelfth century. This is
not so notable in St Gillies, but in St Etienne the Less, in spite of
the growth of weeds in all the crevices, in spite of discolourment,
and filled-in windows, in spite of bars and general decay and disuse,
we have a most beautiful church, and one that almost any English town
would consider its most precious possession.
There are many other churches which might be mentioned, but we have
space only for one, because of its peculiarity. St Sauveur consists of
two churches, which were originally built side by side, and now, with
the partition wall removed, form one! Not far from St Etienne is St
Nicholas, belonging to the eleventh and twelfth centuries; and in the
Rue St Jean--down which the station traffic passes--is the church of St
Jean, dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
After the churches in interest come the Renaissance hotels, of which
we have already described the principal one; of the others, there are
two connected with the name of Etienne Duval de Mondrainville which
cannot be overlooked. These are to be found in the little narrow street
running behind St Sauveur. Etienne de Mondrainville was born in 1507,
and was for a long time one of the most important personages in Caen.
He twice made a fortune, and was twice ruined by the jealousy of his
comrades. He was an energetic man, and pushed his trade to an extent
which at that time was remarkable; he carried on trade with Africa and
America, and his staple was corn from Barbary.
The smaller of the two houses he built stands in a little courtyard.
The carving, the miniature tower, and the dormer windows are all
charming, and are enhanced by the bit of green in front. In 1550 the
Chambre de la Monnaie was moved here from St Lo, and the house retained
the name. Across the street is the larger house of about the same
date, now a printing establishment. It was built in 1549, and the
cupola and lantern, columns and dormers, all bespeak its date. Etienne
died in 1578, leaving two sons, one an abbé and the other a soldier.
The Hotel de Than, in the Rue St Jean, is another house of the same
date, telling of the wealth and opulence of the burghers of Caen after
the city had recovered from the effects and uncertainty of the English
occupation, and become once more French.
From all that has been said, it may be gathered that there is much
to see in Caen, and yet the account is fragmentary, and has not told
the half. There are other churches not mentioned, other hotels to
be found in dark courtyards and down unpromising tunnels; there is
the famous Maison des Gens d’Armes, built in the reign of François
First, only a mile or so out on the Ouistreham Road, and there are
countless other features that would take long to discover, but are
well worth the explorers trouble. By the river Orne there are wide
quais and boulevards, and the great race-course fringed with trees.
In the centre of the town is the pleasant and well-kept Place de
la Republique, once the Place Royale, a name still retained by the
principal hotel, which stands at one end. Here there are the usual
flower-beds, and seats, and trees, and on the west side rise the large
and fine public buildings, the Hotel de Ville, including the splendid
public library, the inevitable Musée, and behind is the Prefecture.
From all of which it may be gathered that Caen is a town which in
no way neglects the interests of her citizens. Yet with all these
manifold attractions, with her many advantages and her historic past,
it is impossible to deny that a slight feeling of dulness broods over
Caen. It is indescribable, it is unanalysable, but perhaps it may be
due to what I have before called the spirit of a town; perhaps Caen as
an entity lacks originality, or else why is it that English visitors
who go there, full of intelligent appreciation, who see much, and who
acknowledge the intrinsic interest of what they have seen, leave at the
end of two days, feeling glad to go?
Malherbe the poet was born at Caen in 1555, and it is impossible to
quit the city without mentioning the name of Charlotte Corday, who,
though not a native, passed her girlhood here with an aunt. The house
in which she lived has disappeared, but No. 148 Rue St Jean stands on
the site of it. She came here after being educated in a convent, and
seems to have been left much to herself, spending her time in reading
such works as those of Voltaire.
After the downfall of the party of the Girondins in 1793, some of the
leaders came to Caen, and Charlotte attended their meetings. It was
at this time she conceived her courageous idea of going to Paris to
assassinate Marat, who typified all that was worst in tyranny. She
obtained a passport in which she is described as being twenty-four
years of age, only 5 feet 1 inch in height, with chestnut hair and
grey eyes. Her face was oval, her forehead high, her nose long, and
her chin dimpled. The quiet determination with which she executed her
project, and the absence of all revulsion after it, put her on the same
level as the other great heroine, Joan of Arc. A country which has
produced two such women, may well take high rank.