BAYEUX AND THE SMALLER TOWNS
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.
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT INN YARD]
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.
[Illustration: TIMBER-FRAME HOUSE, LISIEUX]
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.
[Illustration: VALLEY OF THE RILLE]
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.
[Illustration: ST LO]
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.
[Illustration: A STREET IN GRANVILLE]
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.