entitled to stand before it. The faculty of law retains its old reputation, and the legal students are quite the pride of the university. Since the peace, many young jurisprudents from Jersey and Guernsey have resorted to it. Medical students generally complete their education at Paris, where it is commonly considered in France, that, both in theory and practice, the various branches of this faculty have nearly attained the acme of perfection. The students, who amount to just five hundred, are under the care of twenty-six professors, many of them men of distinguished talents. The Abbe de la Rue fills the chair of history; M. Lamouroux, that of the natural sciences. They receive their salaries wholly from the government; their emoluments continue the same, whether the students crowd to hear their courses, or whether they lecture to empty benches. It is strictly forbidden to a student to attempt to make any remuneration to a professor, or even to offer him a present of any kind. The whole of the dues paid by the scholars go to the state; and the state in its turn, defrays the expences of the establishment.
There is likewise at Caen an Academy of Sciences, Arts and Belles Lettres, which has published two volumes; not, strictly speaking, of its Transactions, but exhibiting a brief outline of the principal papers that have been read at the meetings. The antiquarian dissertations of the Abbe de la Rue, which they contain, are of great merit; and it is much to be regretted, that they have not appeared in a more extended form. A chartered academy was first founded here in the year 1705; and it continued to exist, till it was suppressed, like all others throughout France, at the revolution. The present establishment arose in 1800, under the auspices of General Dugua, then prefect of the department, who had been urged to the task by the celebrated Chaptal, Minister of the Interior.–Some interesting, letters are annexed to the second part of the poems of Mosant de Brieux, in which, among much curious information relative to Caen, he describes the literary meetings that led to the foundation of the first academy. The town at that time could boast an unusual proportion of men of talents. Bochart, author of _Sacred Geography_; Graindorge, who had published _De Principiis Generationis_; Huet, a man seldom mentioned, without the epithet _learned_ being attached to his name; and Halley and Menage, authors almost equally distinguished, were amongst those who were associated for the purposes of acquiring and communicating information.
Indeed, Caen appears at all times to have been fruitful in literary characters. Huet enumerates no fewer than one hundred and thirty-seven, whom he considers worthy of being recorded among the eminent men of France. The greater part of them are necessarily unknown to us in England; and allowance must be made for a man who is writing upon a subject, in which self-love may be considered as in some degree involved; the glory of our townsmen shining by reflection upon ourselves. A portion, however, of the number, are men whose claims to celebrity will not be denied.–Such, in the fifteenth century, were the poets John and Clement Marot; such was the celebrated physician, Dalechamps, to whom naturalists are indebted for the _Historia Plantarum_; such the laborious lexicographer, Constantin; and, not to extend the catalogue needlessly, such above all was Malherbe. The medal that has been struck at Caen in honor of this great man, at the expence of Monsieur de Lair, bears for its epigraph, the three first words of Boileau’s eulogium–“Enfin Malherbe vint.”–The same inscription is also to be seen upon the walls of the library. So expressive a beginning prepares the reader for a corresponding sequel; and I should be guilty of injustice towards this eminent writer, were I not to quote to you the passage at length.–
“Enfin, Malherbe vint, et le premier en France Fit sentir dans les vers une juste cadence: D’un mot mis en sa place enseigna le pouvoir, Et reduisit la muse aux regles du devoir. Par ce sage ecrivain, la langue reparee, N’offrit plus rien de rude a l’oreille epuree. Les stances avec grace apprirent a tomber, Et le Vers sur le Vers n’osa plus enjamber.”
Wace and Baudius, though not born at Caen, have contributed to its honor, by their residence here. Baudius was appointed to the professorship of law in the university, by the President de Thou; but he disagreed with his colleagues, and soon removed to Leyden, where he filled the chair of history till his death. Some of his earlier letters, in the collection published by Elzevir, are dated from Caen. His Iambi, directed against his brethren of this university, are scarcely to be exceeded for severity, by the bitterest specimens of a style proverbially bitter. Their excessive virulence defeated the writer’s aim; but there is an elegance in the Latinity of Baudius, and a degree of feeling in his sentiments, which will ensure a permanent existence to his compositions, and especially to his poems.–He it was who called forth the severe saying of Bayle, that “many men of learning render themselves contemptible in the places where they live, while they are admired where they are known only by their writings.”–Wace was a native of Jersey, but an author only at Caen. The most celebrated of his works is _Le Roman de Rou et des Normans_, written in French verse. He dedicated this romance to our Henry IInd, who rewarded him with a stall in the cathedral at Bayeux.
[Illustration: Profile of M. Lamouroux]
Quitting the departed for the living, I send you a profile of M. Lamouroux, the professor of natural history at this university, to whom we have been personally indebted for the kindest attention. His name is well known to you, as that of a man who has, perhaps, deserved more than any other individual at the hands of every student of marine Botany. His treatises upon the _Classification of the Submersed Algae_, have been honored with admission in the _Memoires du Museum d’Histoire Naturelle_, and have procured him the distinction of being elected into the National Institute: his subsequent publication on the _Corallines_, is an admirable manual, in a very difficult branch of natural history; and he is now preparing for the press, a work of still greater labor and more extensive utility, an arrangement of the organized fossils found in the vicinity of Caen.
The whole of this neighborhood abounds in remains of the antediluvian world: they are found not only in considerable quantity, but in great perfection. In the course of last year; a fossil crocodile was dug up at Allemagne, a village about a mile distant, imbedded in blue lias. Other specimens of the same genus, comprising, as it appears, two species, both of them distinct from any that are known in a living state, had previously been discovered in a bed of similar hard blue limestone, near Havre and Honfleur, as well as upon the opposite shores of England. But the Caen specimen is the most interesting of any, as the first that has been seen with its scales perfect; and the naturalists here have availed themselves of the opportunity thus afforded them, to determine it by a specific character, and give it the name of _Crocodilus Cadomensis_.
The civil and ecclesiastical history of Caen will be amply illustrated in the forthcoming volumes of the Abbe de la Rue, as he is preparing a work on the subject, _a l’instar_ of the Essays of St. Foix. In the leading events of the duchy, we find the town of Caen had but little share. It is only upon the occasion of two sieges from our countrymen, the one in 1346, the other in 1417, that it appears to have acted a prominent part. The details of the first siege are given at some length by Froissart.–Edward IIIrd, accompanied by the Black Prince, had landed at La Hogue; and, meeting with no effectual resistance, had pillaged the towns of Barfleur, Cherbourg, Carentan, and St. Lo, after which he led his army hither. Caen, as Froissait tells us, was at that time “large, strong, and full of drapery and all other sorts of merchandize, rich citizens, noble dames and damsels, and fine churches.” In its defence were assembled the Constable of France, with the Counts of Eu, Guignes, and Tancarville. But the wisdom of the generals was defeated by the impetuosity of the citizens. They saw themselves equal in number to the invaders, and, without reflecting how little numerical superiority avails in war against experience and tactics, they required to be led against the foe. They were so, and were defeated. The conquerors and conquered entered the city pell-mell; and Edward, enraged at the citizens for shooting upon his troops from the windows, issued orders that the inhabitants should be put to the sword, and the town burned. The mandate, however, was not executed: Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, with wise remonstrances, assuaged the anger of the sovereign, and diverted him from his purpose.–Immense were the riches taken on the occasion. The English fleet returned home loaded with cloth, and jewels, and gold, and silver plate, together with sixty knights, and upwards of three hundred able men, prisoners. This gallant exploit was shortly afterwards followed by the decisive battle of Crecy.
Caen suffered still more severely upon the occasion of its second capture; when Henry IVth marched upon the town immediately after landing at Touques. The siege was longer, and the place, taken by assault, was given up to indiscriminate plunder. Even the churches were not spared: that of the Holy Sepulchre was demolished, and, among its other treasures, a crucifix was carried away, containing a portion of the real cross, which, as we are told, testified by so many miracles its displeasure at being taken to England, that the conquerors were glad to restore it to its original destination.
From this time to the year 1450, our countrymen kept undisturbed possession of Caen. In the latter year they capitulated to the Count de Dunois, after a gallant resistance. But though the town has thenceforward remained, without interruption, subject to the crown of France, it has not therefore been always free from the miseries of warfare. A dreadful riot took place here in 1512, occasioned by the disorderly conduct of a body of six thousand German mercenaries, whom Louis XIIth introduced, by way of garrison, to guard against any sudden attack from Henry VIIIth. The character given by De Bourgueville of these _Lansquenets_ is, that they were “drunkards who guzzle wine, cider, and beer, out of earthen pots, and then fall asleep upon the table.” Three hundred lives were lost upon this occasion, on the part of the Germans alone.–In the middle of the same century, happened the civil wars, originating in the reformation: and in the course of these, Caen suffered dreadfully from the contending parties. Friend and foe conspired alike to its ruin: what was saved from the violence of the Huguenots, was taken by the treachery of the Catholics, under the plausible pretext of its being placed in security. Thus, after the Calvinists had already seized on every thing precious that fell in their way, the Duke de Bouillon, the governor of the town, commanded all the reliquaries, shrines, church-plate, and ecclesiastical ornaments, to be carried to him at the castle; and he had no sooner got them into his possession, than “all holy, rich, and precious, as they were, he caused them to be melted down, and converted into coin to pay his soldiers; and he scattered the relics, so that they have never been seen more.”–Loosen but the bands of society, and you will find that, in all ages of the world, the case has been nearly the same; and, as upon the banks of the Simoeis, so upon the plains of Normandy,–
“Seditione, dolis, scelere, atque libidine, et ira, _Iliacos_ extra muros peccatur et intra.”
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 80: Engravings of the same tiles, and of some others, chiefly with fanciful patterns, are to be found in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for March 1789, LIX. p. 211, plates 2, 3. The subjects of the latter plate are those tiles which were hung in a gilt frame, on the walls of the cloister of the abbey, with an inscription, denoting whence they were taken.]
[Footnote 81: _Monumens de la Monarchie Francaise_, I. p. 402, t. 55.]
LETTER XXVII.
VIEUX–LA MALADERIE–CHESNUT TIMBER–CAEN STONE–HISTORY OF BAYEUX–TAPESTRY.
(_Bayeux, August_, 1818.)
Letters just received from England oblige us to change our course entirely: their contents are of such a nature, that we could not prolong our journey with comfort or satisfaction. We must return to England; and, instead of regretting the objects which we have lost, we must rejoice that we have seen so much, and especially that we have been able to visit the cathedral and tapestry of Bayeux.
At the same time, I will not deny that we certainly could have wished to have explored the vicinity of Caen, where an ample harvest of subjects, both for the pen and pencil, is to be gathered; but the circumstances that control us would not even allow of a pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of la Delivrande, on the border of the English Channel, or of an excursion to the village of Vieux, in the opposite direction.–Antiquaries have been divided in opinion, concerning the nature and character of the buildings which anciently occupied the site of this village.–The remains of a Roman aqueduct are still to be seen there, and the foundations of ancient edifices are distinctly to be traced. In the course of the last century, a gymnasium was likewise discovered, of great size, constructed according to the rules laid down by Vitruvius, and a hypocaust, connected with a fine stone basin, twelve feet in diameter, surrounded by three rows of seats. Abundance of medals of the upper empire, among others, of Crispina, wife to Commodus, and Latin inscriptions and sarcophagi, are frequently dug up among its ruins[82]. Hence, a belief has commonly prevailed that during the Roman dominion in Gaul, Vieux was a city, and that Caen, which is only six miles distant, arose from its ruins. This opinion was strenuously combated by Huet; yet it subsequently found a new advocate in the Abbe Le Beuf[83]. The bishop contends that the extent of the buildings rather denotes the ruins of a fortified camp, than of a city; and he therefore considers it most probable, that Vieux was the site of an encampment, raised near the Orne, for the purpose of defending the passage of the river, at the point where it was crossed by the military road that led from the district of the Bessin, to that of the Hiesmois.–Portions of the causeway, may still be traced, constructed of the same kind of brick as the aqueduct; and the name of the village so far tends to corroborate the conjecture, that _Vieux_ originally denoted a ford; and the word _Ve_, which is most probably a corruption from it, retains this signification in Norman French.–The Abbe, at the same time that he does not pretend to contradict the argument deduced from etymology, maintains that a careful comparison of the position of Vieux, with the distances marked on the _Tabula Peutingeriana_, and with what Ptolemy relates of certain towns adjoining the Viducassian territory, will support him in the assertion, that Vieux was the ancient _Augustodurum_ the Viducassian capital; and that Bayeux was probably the site of _Arigenus_ another of the towns of that tribe.–The red, veined marble of Vieux is much esteemed in France; as are also the other marbles of this department, which vary in color from a dull white, through grey, to blue. The quarries, as is generally believed, were first opened and worked by the Romans. Vieux marble is to be seen at Paris, where it was employed by Cardinal Richelieu, in the construction of the chapel of the Sorbonne.
At about a mile from Caen, on the road to Bayeux, stands the village of St. Germain de Blancherbe, more commonly called in the neighborhood _la Maladerie_, a name derived from the lazar-house in it, the _Leproserie de Beaulieu_, founded by Henry IInd, in 1161.–Robert Du Mont terms the building a wonderful work. It was a princely establishment, designed for the reception of lepers from all the parishes of Caen, except four, whose patients had an especial right to be admitted into a smaller hospital in the same place. The great hospital is now used as a house of correction. Seen from the road, it appears to be principally of modern architecture though still retaining a portion of the ancient structure; the same, probably, as is mentioned by Ducarel, who says, that “part of the magnificent chapel, which was considered as the parish church for the lepers, and ruined by the English, is turned into a large common hall for the prisoners, and separated from the other part, which is made into a chapel, by means of an iron gate, through which they may have an opportunity of hearing mass celebrated every morning.”–Within the village street stands a desecrated church of the earliest Norman style, with a very perfect door-way. The present parish church, though chiefly modern, deserves attention on account of the west front, which is wholly of the semi-circular style, and is somewhat curious, from having two Norman buttresses, that rise from a string-course at the top of the basement story, (in which the arched door-way is contained,) and are thence continued upwards till they unite with the roof. The decorations round its southern entrance are also remarkable: they principally consist of a very sharp chevron moulding, interspersed with foliage and various figures.
The quarries in this village, and in that of Allemagne, on the opposite side of the Orne, supply most of the free-stone, for which Caen has, during many centuries, been celebrated. Stone of the finest quality is found in strata of different thickness, at the depth of about sixty feet below the surface of the ground. If worked much lower, it ceases to be good. It is brought up in square blocks, about nine feet wide, and two feet thick, by means of vertical wheels, placed at the mouths of the pits. When first dug from the quarry, its color is a pure and glossy white, and its texture very soft; but as it hardens it takes a browner hue, and loses its lustre.
In former days this stone was exported in great quantity to our own country. Stow, in his _Survey of London_, states that London Bridge, Westminster Abbey, and several others of our public edifices were built with it. Extracts from sundry charters relative to the quarries are quoted by Ducarel, who adds that, in his time, though many cargoes of the stone were annually conveyed by water to the different provinces of the kingdom, the exportation of it out of France was strictly prohibited, insomuch that, when it was to be sent by sea, the owner of the stone, as well as the master of the vessel on board of which it was shipped, was obliged to give security that it should not be sold to foreigners.–We omitted to inquire how far the same prohibitions still continue in force.
At but a short distance from St. Germain de Blancherbe, stands the ruined abbey of Ardennes, now the residence of a farmer; but still preserving the features of a monastic building. The convent was founded in 1138, for canons of the Praemonstratensian order. Its Celtic name denotes its antiquity, as it also tends to prove that this part of the country was covered with timber. The word, _arden_, signified a forest, and was thence applied, with a slight variation in orthography, to the largest forest in England, and to the more celebrated forest in the vicinity of Liege. According to tradition, the Norman ardennes consisted: of chesnut-trees. De Bourgueville tells us that timber of this description is the principal material of most of the houses in the town. John Evelyn relates the same of those in London; and in our own counties wherever a village church has been so fortunate as to preserve its ancient timber cieling, the clerk is almost sure to state that the wood is chesnut. Either this tree therefore must formerly have abounded in places where it has now almost ceased to exist, or oak timber must have been commonly mistaken for it: and we may equally adopt both these conjectures. The yew and the service, as well as the chesnut, are occasionally mentioned in old charters, and are admitted by botanists to be indigenous in England. I should doubt, however, if any one of them could now be found in a wild state; and there is a fashion in planting as well as in every thing else, which renders peculiar trees more or less abundant at different times.
About half way between Caen and Bayeux, is the village of Bretteville l’Orgueilleuse, the lofty tower of whose church, perforated with long lancet windows, and surmounted by a high spire, excites curiosity. Churches are numerous in this neighborhood, and there is no other part of Normandy, in which, architecturally considered, they are equally deserving of notice. Scarcely one is to be seen that is not marked by some peculiarity. I know not why Bretteville acquired the epithet attached to its name; and I am equally at a loss for the derivation of the word _Bretteville_ itself; but the term must have some signification in Normandy, at least eleven villages in the duchy being so called.
The first part of the road to Bayeux passes through a flat and open district, resembling that on the other side of Caen; in the remaining half, the country is enclosed, with a more varied surface. Apple-trees again abound; and the old custom of suspending a bush over the door of an inn is commonly practised here. For this purpose misletoe is almost always selected. Throughout the whole of this district and the neighboring province of Brittany, the ancient attachment of the Druids to misletoe continues to a certain degree to prevail. The commencement of the new year is hailed by shouts of “au gui; l’an neuf;” and the gathering of the misletoe for the occasion is still the pretext for a merry-making, if not for a religious ceremony.
Bayeux was the seat of an academy of the Druids. Ausonius expressly addresses Attius Patera Pather, one of the professors at Bordeaux, as being of the family of the priesthood of this district:–
“Doctor potentum rhetorum,
Tu Bajocassis stirpe Druidarum satus;”
And tradition to this hour preserves the remembrance of the spot that was hallowed by the celebration of their mystic rites. This spot, an eminence adjoining the city, has subsequently served for the site of a priory dedicated to St. Nicholas _de la chesnaye_, thus commemorating by the epithet, the oaks that formed the holy grove. Near it stood the famous temple of Mount Phaunus, which was flourishing in the beginning of the fourth century, and, according to Rivet, was considered one of the three most celebrated in Gaul. Belenus was the divinity principally worshipped in it; but, according to popular superstition, adoration was also paid to a golden calf, which was buried in the hill, and still remains entombed there. Even within the last fifty years, two laborers have lost their lives in a fruitless attempt to find this hidden treasure. Tombs, and urns, and human bones, are constantly discovered; yet neither Druidic temples, nor pillars of stone, nor cromlechs or Celtic remains of any description exist, at least, at present, in the neighborhood of Bayeux.
Roman relics, however, abound. The vases and statues dug up near this city, have afforded employment to the pen and the pencil of Count Caylus, who, judging from the style of art, refers the greater part of them to the times of Julius and Augustus Caesar. Medals of the earliest emperors have likewise frequently been detected among the foundations of the houses of the city; and even so recently as in the beginning of the present century, mutilated cippi, covered with Latin inscriptions, have been brought to light. These discoveries all tend to shew the Roman origin of Bayeux, and two Roman causeways also join here; so that, notwithstanding the arguments of the Abbe le Beuf, most antiquaries still believe that Bayeux was the city called by Ptolemy the _Naeomagus Viducassium_.–The term _Viducasses_ or _Biducasses_ was in early ages changed to _Bajocasses_; and the city, following the custom that prevailed in Gaul, took the appellation of _Bajocae_, or, as it was occasionally written, of _Baiae_ or _Bagicae_. Its name in French has likewise been subject to alterations.–During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it was _Baex_ and _Bajeves_; in the fourteenth _Bajex_; in the sixteenth _Baieux_; and soon afterwards it settled info the present orthography.
Pursuing the history of Bayeux somewhat farther, we find this city in the _Notitia Galileae_ holding the first rank among the towns of the _Secunda Lugdunensis_. During the Merovingian and Carlovingian dynasties, its importance is proved by the mint which was established here. Golden coins, struck under the first race of French sovereigns, inscribed _HBAJOCAS_, and silver pieces, coined by Charles the Bald, with the legend _HBAJOCAS-CIVITAS_, are mentioned by Le Blanc. Bayeux was also in those times, one of the head-quarters of the high functionaries, entitled _Missi Dominici_, who were annually deputed by the monarchy for the promulgation of their decrees and the administration of justice. Two other cities only in Neustria, Rouen and Lisieux, were distinguished with the same privilege.–Nor did Bayeux suffer any diminution of its honors, under the Norman Dukes: they regarded it as the second town of the duchy, and had a palace here, and frequently made it the seat of their _Aula Regio_.
The destruction of the Roman Bayeux is commonly ascribed, like that of the Roman Lisieux, to the Saxon invasion. No traces of the Viducassian capital are to be found in history, subsequently to the reign of Constantine; no medals, no inscriptions of a later period, have been dug up within its precincts. During the earliest incursions of the Saxons in Gaul, they seem to have made this immediate neighborhood the seat of a permanent settlement. The Abbe Le Beuf places the district, known by the name of the _Otlingua Saxonia_, between Bayeux and Isigny; and Gregory of Tours, in his relation of the events that occurred towards the close of the sixth century, makes repeated mention of the _Saxones Bajocassini_, whom the early Norman historians style _Saisnes de Bayeux_. Under the reign of Charlemagne, a fresh establishment of Saxons took place here. That emperor, after the bloody defeat of this valiant people, about the year 804, caused ten thousand men, with their wives and children, to be delivered up to him as prisoners, and dispersed them in different parts of France. Some of the captives were colonized in Neustria; and, among the rest, Witikind, son of the brave chief of the same name, who had fought so nobly in defence of the liberty of his country, had lands assigned to him in the Bessin. Hence, names of Saxon origin commonly occur throughout the diocese of Bayeux; sometimes alone and undisguised, but more frequently in composition. Thus, in _Estelan_, you will have little difficulty in recognizing _East-land: Cape la Hogue_ will readily suggest the idea of a lofty promontory; its appellation being derived from the German adjective, _hoch_, still written _hoog_, in Flemish: the Saxon word for the Almighty enters into the family names of _Argot_, _Turgot_, _Bagot_, _Bigot_, &c.; and, not to multiply examples, the quaking sands upon the sea-shore are to the present hour called _bougues_, an evident corruption of our own word _bogs_.
When, towards the middle of the same century, the Saxons were succeeded by the Normans, the country about Bayeux was one of the districts that suffered most from the new invaders. Two bishops of the see, Sulpitius and Baltfridus, were murdered by the barbarians; and Bayeux itself was pillaged and burned, notwithstanding the valiant resistance made by the governor, Berenger. This nobleman, who was count of the Bessin, was personally obnoxious to Rollo, for having refused him his daughter, the beautiful Poppea, in marriage. But, on the capture of the town, Poppea was taken prisoner, and compelled to share the conqueror’s bed. Bayeux arose from its ruins under the auspices of Botho, a Norman chieftain, to whom Rollo was greatly attached, and who succeeded to the honors of Berenger. By him the town was rebuilt, and filled with a Norman population, the consequence of which was, according to Dudo of St. Quintin, that William Longa-Spatha, the successor of Rollo, who hated the French language, sent his son, Duke Richard, to be educated at Bayeux, where Danish alone was spoken. And the example of the Duke continued for some time to be imitated by his successors upon the throne; so that Bayeux became the academy for the children of the royal family, till they arrived at a sufficient age to be removed to the metropolis, there to be instructed in the art of government.
The dignity of Count of the Bessin ceased in the reign of William the Conqueror, in consequence of a rebellion on the part of the barons, which had well nigh cost that sovereign his life. From that time, till the conquest of Normandy by the French, the nobleman, who presided over the Bessin, bore the title of the king’s viscount; and, under this name, you will find him the first cited among the four viscounts of Lower Normandy, in the famous parliament of all the barons of this part of the duchy, convened at Caen by Henry IInd, in 1152.–When Philip Augustus gained possession of Normandy, all similar appointments were re-modelled, and viscounts placed in every town; but their power was restricted to the mere administration of justice, the rest of their privileges being transferred to a new description of officers, who were then created, with the name of bailiffs. The bailiwicks assigned to these bore no reference to the ancient divisions of the duchy; but the territorial partition made at that time, has ever since been preserved, and Caen, which was honored by Philip with a preference over Bayeux, continues to the present day to retain the pre-eminence.
After these troubles, Bayeux enjoyed a temporary tranquillity; and, according to the celebrated historical tapestry and to the _Roman de Rou_, this city was selected for the place at which William the Conqueror, upon being nominated by Edward, as his successor to the crown of England, caused Harold to attend, and to do homage to him in the name of the nation. The oath was taken upon a missal covered with cloth of gold, in the presence of the prelates and grandees of the duchy; and the reliques of the saints were collected from all quarters to bear witness to the ceremony. Bayeux was also the spot in which Henry Ist was detained prisoner by his eldest brother, and it suffered for this unfortunate distinction; for Henry had scarcely ascended the English throne, when, upon a shallow pretext, he advanced against the city, laid siege to it, and burned it to the ground; whether moved to this act of vengeance from hatred towards the seat of his sufferings, or to satisfy the foreigners in his pay, whom the length of the siege had much irritated. He had promised these men the pillage of the city, and he kept his word; but the soldiers were not content with the plunder: they set fire to the town, and what had escaped their ravages, perished in the flames.[84] In 1356, under the reign of Edward IIIrd, Bayeux experienced nearly the same fate from our countrymen; and in the following century it again suffered severely from their arms, till the decisive battle of Formigny, fought within ten miles of the city, compelled Henry VIth to withdraw from Normandy, carrying with him scarcely any other trophies of his former conquests, than a great collection of Norman charters, and, among the rest, those of Bayeux, which are to this hour preserved in the tower of London.
During the subsequent wars occasioned by the reformation, this town bore its share in the common sufferings of the north of France. The horrors experienced by other places on the occasion were even surpassed by the outrages that were committed at Bayeux; but it is impossible to enter into details which are equally revolting to decency and to humanity.
Of late years, Bayeux has been altogether an open town. The old castle, the last relic of its military character, a spacious fortress flanked by ten square towers, was demolished in 1773; and, as the poet of Bayeux has sung[85],–
“… Gaulois, Romains, Saxons,
Oppresseurs, opprimes, colliers, faisceaux, blasons, Tout dort. Du vieux chateau la taciturne enceinte Expire. Par degres j’ai vu sa gloire eteinte. J’ai marche sur ses tours, erre dans ses fosses: Tels qu’un songe bientot ils vont etre effaces.”
And in truth, they are so effectually _effaced_, that not a single vestige of the walls and towers can now be discovered.
Bayeux is situated in the midst of a fertile country, particularly rich in pasturage. The Aure, which washes its walls, is a small and insignificant streamlet, and though the city is within five miles of the sea, yet the river is quite useless for the purposes of commerce, as not a vessel can float in it. The present population of the town consists of about ten thousand inhabitants, and these have little other employment than lace-making.–Bayeux wears the appearance of decay: most of the houses are ordinary; and, though some of them are built of stone, by far the greater part are only of wood and plaster. In the midst, however, of these, rises the noble cathedral; but this I shall reserve for the subject of my next letter, concluding the present with a few remarks upon that matchless relic, which,
“… des siecles respecte,
En peignant des heros honore la beaute.”
The very curious piece of historical needle-work, now generally known by the name of the _Bayeux tapestry_, was first brought into public notice in the early part of the last century, by Father Montfaucon and M. Lancelot, both of whom, in their respective publications, the _Monumens de la Monarchie Francaise_[86], and a paper inserted in the _Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions_[87], have figured and described this celebrated specimen of ancient art. Montfaucon’s plates were afterwards republished by Ducarel[88], with the addition of a short dissertation and explanation, by an able antiquary of our own country, Smart Lethieuilier.
These plates, however, in the original, and still more in the copies, were miserably incorrect, and calculated not to inform, but to mislead the inquirer. When therefore the late war was concluded and France became again accessible to an Englishman, our Society of Antiquaries, justly considering the tapestry as being at least equally connected with English as with French history, and regarding it as a matter of national importance, that so curious a document should be made known by the most faithful representation, employed an artist, fitted above all others for the purpose, by his knowledge of history and his abilities as a draughtsman, to prepare an exact fac-simile of the whole. Under the auspices of the Society, Mr. C.A. Stothard undertook the task; and he has executed it in the course of two successive visits with the greatest accuracy and skill. The engravings from his drawings we may hope shortly to see: meanwhile, to give you some idea of the original, I enclose a sketch, which has no other merit than that of being a faithful transcript. It is reduced one half from a tracing made from the tapestry itself. By referring to Montfaucon, you will find the figure it represents under the fifty-ninth inscription in the original, where “a knight, with a _private_ banner, issues to mount a led horse.” His beardless countenance denotes him a Norman; and the mail covering to his legs equally proves him to be one of the most distinguished characters.
[Illustration: Figure from the Bayeux Tapestry]
Within the few last years this tapestry has been the subject of three interesting papers, read before the Society of Antiquaries. The first and most important, from the pen of the Abbe de la Rue[89], has for its object the refutation of the opinions of Montfaucon and Lancelot, who, following the commonly received tradition, refer the tapestry to the time of the conquest, and represent it as the work of Queen Matilda and her attendant damsels. The Abbe’s principal arguments are derived from the silence of contemporary authors, and especially of Wace, who was himself a canon of Bayeux;–from its being unnoticed in any charters or deeds of gift connected with the cathedral;–from the improbability that so large a roll of such perishable materials would have escaped destruction when the cathedral was burned in 1106;–from the unfinished state of the story;–from its containing some Saxon names unknown to the Normans;–and from representations taken from the fables of AEsop being worked on the borders, whereas the northern parts of Europe were not made acquainted with these fables, till the translation of a portion of them by Henry Ist, who thence obtained his surname of _Beauclerk_.–These and other considerations, have led the learned Abbe to coincide in opinion with Lord Littleton and Mr. Hume, that the tapestry is the production of the Empress Maud, and that it was in reality wrought by natives of our own island, whose inhabitants were at that time so famous for labors of this description, that the common mode of expressing a piece of embroidery, was by calling it _an English work_.
The Abbe shortly afterwards found an opponent in another member of the society, Mr. Hudson Gurney, who, without following his predecessor through the line of his arguments, contented himself with briefly stating the three following reasons for ascribing the tapestry to Matilda, wife to the Conqueror[90].–_First_, that in the many buildings therein pourtrayed, there is not the least appearance of a pointed arch, though much pointed work is found in the ornaments of the running border; whilst, on the contrary, the features of Norman architecture, the square buttress, flat to the walls, and the square tower surmounted by, or rather ending in, a low pinnacle, are therein frequently repeated.–_Secondly_, that all the knights are in ring armour, many of their shields charged with a species of cross and five dots, and some with dragons, but none with any thing of the nature of armorial bearings, which, in a lower age, there would have been; and that all wear a triangular sort of conical helmet, with a nasal, when represented armed.–And, _Thirdly_, that the Norman banner is, invariably, _Argent_, a Cross, _Or_, in a Bordure _Azure_; and that this is repeated over and over again, as it is in the war against Conan, as well as at Pevensey and at Hastings; but there is neither hint nor trace of the later invention of the Norman leopards.–Mr. Gurney’s arguments are ingenious, but they are not, I fear, likely to be considered conclusive: he however, has been particularly successful in another observation, that all writers, who had previously treated of the Bayeux tapestry, had called it a _Monument of the Conquest of England_; following, therein, M. Lancelot, and speaking of it as an unfinished work, whereas, it is in fact an _apologetical history of the claims of William to the crown of England, and of the breach of faith and fall of Harold_, in a perfect and finished action.–With this explanation before us, aided by the short indication that is given of the subjects of the seventy-two compartments of the tapestry, a new light is thrown upon the story.
The third memoir is from the pen of Mr. Amyot, and concludes with an able metrical translation from Wace. It is confined almost exclusively to the discussion of the single historical fact, how far Harold was really sent by the Confessor to offer the succession to William; but this point, however interesting, in itself, is unconnected with my present object: it is sufficient for me to shew you the various sources from which you may derive information upon the subject.
Supposing the Bayeux tapestry to be really from the hands of the Queen, or the Empress, (and that it was so appears to me proved by internal evidence,) it is rather extraordinary that the earliest notice which is to be found of a piece of workmanship, so interesting from its author and its subjects, should be contained in an inventory of the precious effects deposited in the treasury of the church, dated 1476. It is also remarkable that this inventory, in mentioning such an article, should call it simply _a very long piece of cloth, embroidered with figures and writing, representing the conquest of England_, without any reference to the royal artist or the donor.
Observations of this nature will suggest themselves to every one, and the arguments urged by the Abbe de la Rue are very strong; and yet I confess that my own feelings always inclined to the side of those who assign the highest antiquity to the tapestry. I think so the more since I have seen it. No one appears so likely to have undertaken such a task as the female most nearly connected with the principal personage concerned in it, and especially if we consider what the character of this female was: the details which it contains are so minute, that they could scarcely have been known, except at the time when they took place: the letters agree in form with those upon Matilda’s tomb; and the manners and customs of the age are also preserved.–Mr. Stothard, who is of the same opinion as to the date of the tapestry, very justly observes, that the last of these circumstances can scarcely be sufficiently insisted upon; for that “it was the invariable practice with artists in every country, excepting Italy, during the middle ages, whatever subject they took in hand, to represent it according to the costume of their own times.”
Till the revolution, the tapestry was always kept in the cathedral, in a chapel on the south side, dedicated to Thomas a Becket, and was only exposed to public view once a year, during the octave of the feast of St. John on which occasion it was hung up in the nave of the church, which it completely surrounded. From the time thus selected for the display of it, the tapestry acquired the name of _le toile de Saint Jean_; and it is to the present day commonly so called in the city. During the most stormy part of the revolution, it was secreted; but it was brought to Paris when the fury of vandalism had subsided. And, when the first Consul was preparing for the invasion of England, this ancient trophy of the subjugation of the British nation was proudly exhibited to the gaze of the Parisians, who saw another _Conqueror_ in Napoleon Bonaparte; and many well-sounding effusions, in prose and verse, appeared, in which the laurels of Duke William were transferred, by anticipation, to the brows of the child and champion of jacobinism. After this display, Bonaparte returned the tapestry to the municipality, accompanied by a letter, in which he thanked them for the care they had taken of so precious a relic. From that period to the present, it has remained in the residence appropriated to the mayor, the former episcopal palace; and here we saw it.
It is a piece of brownish linen cloth, about two hundred and twelve feet long, and eighteen inches wide, French measure. The figures are worked with worsted of different colors, but principally light red, blue, and yellow. The historical series is included between borders composed of animals, &c. The colors are faded, but not so much so as might have been expected. The figures exhibit a regular line of events, commencing with Edward the Confessor seated upon his throne, in the act of dispatching Harold to the court of the Norman Duke, and continued through Harold’s journey, his capture by the Comte de Ponthieu, his interview with William, the death of Edward, the usurpation of the British throne by Harold, the Norman invasion, the battle of Hastings, and Harold’s death. These various events are distributed into seventy-two compartments, each of them designated by an inscription in Latin. Ducarel justly compares the style of the execution to that of a girl’s sampler. The figures are covered with work, except on their faces, which are merely in outline. In point of drawing, they are superior to the contemporary sculpture at St. Georges and elsewhere; and the performance is not deficient in energy. The colors are distributed rather fancifully: thus the fore and off legs of the horses are varied. It is hardly necessary to observe that perspective is wholly disregarded, and that no attempt is made to express light and shadow.
Great attention, however, is paid to costume; and more individuality of character has been preserved than could have been expected, considering the rude style of the workmanship. The Saxons are represented with long mustachios: the Normans have their upper lip shaven, and retain little more hair upon their heads than a single lock in front.–Historians relate how the English spies reported the invading army to be wholly composed of ecclesiastics; and this tapestry affords a graphical illustration of the chroniclers’ text. Not the least remarkable feature of the tapestry, in point of costume, lies in the armor, which, in some instances, is formed of interlaced rings; in others, of square compartments; and in others, of lozenges. Those who contend for the antiquity of Duke William’s equestrian statue at Caen, may find a confirmation of their opinions in the shape of the saddles assigned to the figures of the Bayeux tapestry; and equally so in their cloaks, and their pendant braided tresses.
The tapestry is coiled round a cylinder, which is turned by a winch and wheel; and it is rolled and unrolled with so little attention, that if it continues under such management as the present, it will be wholly ruined in the course of half a century. It is injured at the beginning: towards the end it becomes very ragged, and several of the figures have completely disappeared. The worsted is unravelling too in many of the intermediate portions. As yet, however, it is still in good preservation, considering its great age, though, as I have just observed, it will not long continue so. The bishop and chapter have lately applied to government, requesting that the tapestry may be restored to the church. I hope their application will be successful.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 82: The most interesting relic of Roman times yet found at Vieux, is a cippus of variegated marble, about five feet high by two feet wide, and bearing inscriptions upon three of its sides. It generally passes in France by the name of the _Torigny marble_, being preserved at the small town of the latter name, whither it was carried in 1580, the very year when it was dug up. The Abbe Le Beuf has made it the subject of a distinct paper in the _Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions_. This cippus supported a statue raised in honor of Titus Sennius Sollemnis, a Viducassian by birth, and one of the high priests of the town. The statue was erected to him after his death, in the Viducassian capital, upon a piece of ground granted by the senate for the purpose, in pursuance of a general decree passed by the province of Gaul. The inscriptions set forth the motives that induced the nation to bestow so marked a distinction upon a simple individual; and, in the foremost rank of his merits, they place the games which he had given to his fellow-citizens, during four successive days.]
[Footnote 83: _Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions_, XXI. p. 489.]
[Footnote 84: _Archaeologia_, XVII. p. 911.]
[Footnote 85: _Bayeux et ses Environs, par M. Delauney_, p. 12.]
[Footnote 86: I. p. 371-379; pl. 35-49, and II. p. 1-29; pl. 1-9.]
[Footnote 87: VI. p. 739, and VIII. p. 602.]
[Footnote 88: _Anglo-Norman Antiquities_, Appendix, No. 1.]
[Footnote 89: _Archaeologia_, XVII. p. 85.]
[Footnote 90: _Archaeologia_, XVIII. p. 359.]
[Illustration: Sculpture at Bayeux]
LETTER XXVIII.
CATHEDRAL OF BAYEUX–CANON OF CAMBREMER–COPE OF ST. REGNOBERT–ODO.
(_Bayeux, August_, 1818.)
Excepting the tapestry and the cathedral, Bayeux, at this time, offers no objects of interest to the curious traveller. Its convents are either demolished, or so dilapidated or altered, that they have lost their characteristic features; and its eighteen parish churches are now reduced to four. We wandered awhile about the town, vainly looking after some relic of ancient art, to send you by way of a memento of Bayeux. At length, two presented themselves–the entrance of the corn-market, formerly the chapel of St. Margaret, a Norman arch, remarkable for the lamb and banner, an emblem of the saint, sculptured on the transom stone; and a small stone tablet, attached to an old house near the cathedral. The whimsical singularity of the latter, induced us to give it the preference. It may possibly be of the workmanship of the fourteenth century, and possibly much later. In all probability, it owes its existence merely to a caprice on the part of the owner of the residence, whose crest may be indicated by the tortoises which surmount the columns by way of capitals. Still there is merit in the performance, though perhaps for nothing so much as for the accurate resemblance of peeled wood; and this I never saw imitated with equal fidelity in stone.
But, however unattractive Bayeux may be in other respects, so long as the cathedral is suffered to stand, the city will never want interest. It is supposed that the first church erected here was built by St. Exuperius otherwise called St. Suspirius, or St. Spirius, who, according to the distich subjoined to his portrait, formerly painted on one of the windows of the nave, was not only the earliest bishop of the diocese, but claimed the merit of having introduced the Christian faith into Normandy,–
“Primitus hic pastor templi fuit hujus et auctor, Catholicamque fidem Normannis attulit idem.”
St. Exuperius lived in the third century, and his efforts towards the propagation of the gospel were attended with so great success, that his successor, St. Regnobert, was obliged to take down the edifice thus recently raised, and to re-construct it on a more enlarged scale, for the purpose of accommodating the increasing congregation. Regnobert is likewise reported to have built the celebrated chapel on the sea-coast, dedicated to our Lady de la Delivrande; and the people believe that a portion at least, of both the one and the other of these original edifices, exists to the present day. The Abbe Beziers, however, in his _History of Bayeux_, maintains, and with truth, that St. Regnobert’s cathedral was destroyed by the Normans; and he adds that, immediately after the conversion of Rollo, another was raised in its stead on the same spot, and that this latter was one of those which the chieftain most enriched by his endowments at the period of his baptism.
A dreadful fire, in the year 1046, reduced the Norman cathedral to ashes; but the episcopal throne was then filled by a prelate who wanted neither disposition nor abilities to repair the damage. Hugh, the third bishop of that name, son to Ralph, Count of the Bessin, who, by the mother’s side, was brother to Duke Richard Ist, presided at that time over the see of Bayeux. Jealous for the honor of his diocese, the prelate instantly applied himself to rebuild the cathedral; but he lived to see only a small progress made in his work. It was finished by a prelate of still greater, though evil celebrity, the unruly Odo, brother to the Conqueror, who, for more than fifty years, continued bishop of this see, and by his unbounded liberality and munificence in the discharge of his high office, proved himself worthy of his princely descent. The Conqueror and his queen, attended by their sons, Robert and William, and by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, as well as by the various bishops and barons of the province, were present at the dedication of the church, which was performed in 1077, by John, Archbishop of Rouen. Odo, on the occasion, enriched his church with various gifts, one of which has been particularly recorded. It was a crown of wood and copper, sixteen feet high and thirty-eight feet in diameter, covered with silver plates, and diversified with other crowns in the shape of towers; the whole made to support an immense number of tapers, that were lighted on high festivals. This crown was suspended in the nave, opposite the great crucifix; and it continued to hang there till it was destroyed by the Huguenots, in 1562.
It is doubtful how much, or indeed if any portion, of the church erected by Odo be now in existence. Thirty years had scarcely elapsed from the date of its dedication, when, as I have already mentioned to you, the troops of Henry Ist destroyed Bayeux with fire. The ruin was so complete, that for more than fifty years, no attempt was made to re-construct the cathedral; but it remained in ashes until the year 1157, when bishop, Philip of Harcourt, determined to restore it. A question has arisen whether the oldest part of what is now standing, be the work of Philip or of Odo. The lapse of eighty years in those early times, would perhaps occasion no very sensible difference in style; and chroniclers do not afford the means of determining, if, at the time when Bayeux suffered so dreadfully in 1106, the church was actually burned to the ground, or only materially damaged. In the _History of the Diocese_ we are merely told that Philip, having, by means of papal bulls, happily succeeded in regaining possession of all the privileges, honors, and property of the see, began to rebuild his cathedral in 1159, and completed it with great glory and expence.–From that time forward, we hear no more of demolition or of re-edification; but the injuries done by the silent lapse of ages, and the continued desire on the part of the prelates to beautify and to enlarge their church, have produced nearly the same effect as fire or warfare. The building, as it now stands, is a medley of various ages; and, in the absence of historical record, it would be extremely difficult to define the several portions that are to be assigned to each.
The west front is flanked by two Norman towers, bold and massy, with semi-circular arches in the highest stories. The spires likewise appear ancient, though these and the surrounding pinnacles are all gothic. The northern one, according to tradition, was built with the church; the southern, in 1424. They both greatly resemble those of the abbey-church of St. Stephen at Caen. But the whole centre of this front, and indeed both the sides also, as high as the roof, is faced by a screen divided into five compartments. In the middle is a large, wide, pointed arch, with a square-headed entrance beneath. North and south of this are deep arches, evidently older, but likewise pointed, having their sides above the pillars, and the flat arched part of the door-way, filled with small figures. The door-ways themselves are arches that occupy only one half of the width of those which enclose them. In the two exterior compartments the arches are unpierced, and are flanked by a profusion of clustered pillars. Over each of the four lateral arches, rises a crocketed pyramid: the central one is surmounted by a flat balustrade, above which, behind the screen, is a large pointed window, and over it a row of saints, standing under trefoil-headed arches, arranged in pairs, the pediment terminating above each pair of arches in a pyramidal canopy.
The outside of the nave is of florid gothic, but it is not of a pure style; nor is the southern portal, which, nevertheless, considered as a whole, is bold and appropriate. On each side of the door-way were originally three statues, whose tabernacles remain, though the saints have been torn out of the niches. Over the door is a bas-relief, containing numerous figures disposed in three compartments, and representing some legendary tale, which our knowledge of that kind of lore would not enable us to decipher.–The exterior of the choir is likewise of pointed architecture: it is considerably more simple, and excels, in this respect, the rest of the church. But even here there is a great want of uniformity: some of the windows are deeply imbedded in the walls; others are nearly on a level with their surface.–The cupola, which caps the low central tower, is wretchedly at variance with the other parts of the building. It was erected in the year 1714, at the expence of the bishop, Francis de Nesmond; and it is, as might be expected from a performance of that period, rather Grecian than gothic. Whichever style it may be termed, it is a bad specimen of either. And yet, such as it is, we are assured by Beziers, that it was built after the designs of a celebrated architect of the name of Moussard, and that it excited particular attention, and called forth loud praises, on the part of the Marechal de Vauban, who was, probably, a better judge of a modern fortification, than of a gothic cathedral.
The interior of the church consists of a wide nave, with side-aisles, and chapels beyond them. The first six piers of the nave are very massy, and faced with semi-circular pillars supporting an entablature. The arches above them are Norman, encircled with rich bands, composed chiefly of the chevron moulding and diamonds. On one of them is a curious border of heads, as upon the celebrated door-way at Oxford; but the heads at Bayeux are of much more regular workmanship and more distinctly defined. Had circumstances allowed, I would have sent you an accurate drawing of them; but our time did not permit such a one to be made, and I must beg of you to be contented with the annexed slight sketch.
[Illustration: Border of heads]
The wall above the arches is incrusted with a species of tessellated work of free-stone, of varied patterns, some interwoven, others reticulated, as seen in the sketches: the lines indented in the stones, as well as the joints which form the patterns, are filled with a black cement or mastich, so as to form a kind of _niello_.
[Illustration: Tessellated work of free stone]
With the sixth arch of the nave begins the pointed style. The capitals of the pillars are complicated, and the carving upon them is an evident attempt at an imitation of the Grecian orders. In this part of the church there is no triforium; but a row of small quartrefoils runs immediately above the ornaments of the spandrils; and above the quatrefoils is a cornice of an antique pattern, which is surmounted by a light gallery in front of the windows of the clerestory, the largest windows I remember to have seen in a similar situation. They extend almost from the roof to the line of the old Norman basement. Their magnitude is rendered still more remarkable by their being arranged in pairs, each separate pair inclosed within a pointed arch, and its windows parted only by a clustered pillar. The very lofty arches that support the central tower, are likewise pointed; as are those of the transepts, the choir, the side-aisles, and the chapels. In short, excepting the arches immediately beneath the northern and southern towers, which are most probably relics of Odo’s cathedral, the part of the nave, which I first described, is all that is left above-ground of the semi-circular style; and this is of a very different character from whatever else I have seen of Norman architecture. The circular ornaments inserted in the spandrils of the arches of the choir, possess, as a friend of mine observes, somewhat of the Moorish, or, perhaps, Tartarian character; being nearly in the style of the ornaments which are found in the same situation in the Mogul mosques and tombs, though here they have much more flow and harmony in the curves. Some are merely in bas-relief: in others the central circles are deeply perforated, whilst the ribs are composed of delicate tracery.–There are so many peculiarities both in the arrangement and in the details of this cathedral[91], that it is quite impossible to convey an adequate idea of them by a verbal description; and I can only hope that they will be hereafter made familiar to the English antiquarian by the pencil of Mr. Cotman or Mr. Stothard.
[Illustration: Ornaments in the Spandrils of the Arches in Bayeux Cathedral]
The screen that separates the nave from the choir is Grecian, and is as much at variance with the inside of such a church, as the cupola, which is nearly over it, is with the exterior.–Upon the roof of the choir, are still to be seen the portraits of the first twenty-one bishops of Bayeux, each with his name inscribed by his side. The execution of the portraits is very rude, particularly that of the twelve earliest, whose busts are represented. The artist has contented himself with exhibiting the heads only, of the remaining nine. Common tradition refers the whole of these portraits to the time of Odo; but it is hardly necessary to observe, that the groined and pointed vaulting is subsequent to his date.–Bayeux cathedral abounded in works of this description of art: the walls of the chapels of the choir were covered with large fresco-paintings, now nearly obliterated.–It is believed, and with every appearance of probability, that the Lady-Chapel was erected at a time posterior to the rest of the building; but there is no certain account of its date. Before the revolution, it served as a burial-place for some of the bishops of the see, and for a duke of the noble family of Montemart. Their tombs ornamented the chapel, which now appears desolate and naked, retaining no other of its original decorations, than a series of small paintings, which represent the life of the Holy Virgin, and are deserving of some attention from the character of expression in the faces, though the drawing in general is bad. Over the altar is a picture, in which an angel is pointing out our Savior and the Virgin to a dying man, whose countenance is admirable.–The stalls of the choir display a profusion of beautiful oak carving; and beneath them are sculptured _misereres_, the first which we have observed in Normandy.–Very little painted glass is to be found in any part of the church; but the glazing of the windows is composed of complicated patterns. This species of ornament was introduced about the time of Louis XIVth; and Felibien, who has given several pattern plates in his treatise on architecture, observes, that it was intended to supply the place of painted glass, which, as it was then thought, excluded the light.
Beneath the choir is a subterraneous chapel dedicated to St. Maimertus, otherwise called St. Manvieu. Its character is so similar to that of the crypt at the abbey of the Holy Trinity at Caen, that there would be little risk in pronouncing it to be part of Odo’s church. It is supported on twelve pillars, disposed in two rows, the last pillar of each row being imbedded in the wall. The capitals of the pillars are carved, each with a different design from the rest. Their sculpture bears a strong resemblance to some of what is seen in similar situations in the Egyptian temples; indeed, so strong, that a very able judge tells me he has been led to suspect that the model might have been introduced by an anchorite from the desert. Take the following as a specimen.
[Illustration: Capital of pillar]
The walls of the crypt are covered with paintings, probably of the fifteenth century; but those upon the springing of the arches above the pillars, appear considerably older. Each spandril contains an angel, holding a trumpet or other musical instrument. The outlines of these figures are strongly drawn in black.–Upon the right-hand side, on entering the chapel, is the altar-tomb of John de Boissy, who was bishop at the beginning of the fifteenth century; and, on the opposite side, stands that of his immediate predecessor, Nicolas de Bosc. Their monuments were originally ornamented with bas-reliefs and paintings, all which were mutilated and effaced during the religious wars. De Boissy’s effigy, however, remains, though greatly injured; and the following epitaph to his memory is preserved in a perfect state, over the only window that gives light to this crypt. The inscription is curious, as recording the discovery of the chapel, which had been forgotten and unknown for centuries.
“En l’an mil quatre cens et douze
Tiers jour d’Avril que pluye arrouse Les biens de la terre, la journee
Que la Pasques fut celebree
Noble homme et reverend pere
Jehan de Boissy, de la mere
Eglise de Bayeux Pasteur
Rendi l’ame a Son Createur
Et lors en foillant la place
Devant le grant autel de grace
Trova l’on la basse chapelle
Dont il n’avoit este nouvelle
Ou il est mis en sepulture
Dieu veuille avoir son ame en cure,–Amen.”
This inscription is engraved as prose: verse is very frequently written in this manner in ancient manuscripts, which custom, as Joseph Ritson conjectured, arose “from a desire of promoting the salvation of parchment.” I must also add, that the initial letters are colored red and blue, so that the whole bears a near resemblance to a manuscript page.
There is another epitaph, engraved in large letters, upon the exterior of the southern tower, which is an odd specimen of the spirit of the middle ages. It is supposed to have been placed there in the twelfth century.
“Quarta dies Pasche fuerat cum Clerus ad hujus Que jacet hic vetule venimus exequias: Letitieque diem magis amisisse dolemus Quam centum tales si caderent vetule.”
Some authors contend, that the old lady alluded to was the mistress of one of the Dukes of Normandy: others believe her to have been the _chere amie_ of Robert, Earl of Gloucester, illegitimate son to Henry Ist.
Till lately, there was an epitaph within the church, which, without containing in itself any thing remarkable, strange, or mysterious, had a legend connected: with it, that supplied the verger with an inexhaustible fund of entertainment for the curious and the credulous. The epitaph simply commemorated John Patye, canon of the prebend of Cambremer, who died in 1540; but upon the same plate of copper with the inscription, was also engraved the Virgin, with John Patye at her feet, kneeling, and apparently in the act of reading from a book placed on a fald-stool. Behind the priest stood St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of the prebend, having one hand upon his votary’s neck, while with the other he pointed to a lamb.–In all this, there was still nothing remarkable: unfortunately, however, the artist, wishing perhaps to add importance to the saint, had represented him of gigantic stature; and hence originated the story, which continues to the present day, to frighten the old women, and to amuse the children of Bayeux.–
Once upon a time, the wicked canons of the cathedral murdered their bishop; in consequence of which foul deed, they and their successors for ever, were enjoined, by way of penance, annually to send one of their number to Rome, there to chaunt the epistle at the midnight mass. In the course of revolving centuries, this vexatious duty fell to the turn of the canon of Cambremer, who, to the surprise of the community, testified neither anxiety nor haste on the occasion.–Christmas-eve arrived, and the canon was still in his cell: Christmas-night came, and still he did not stir. At length, when the mass was actually begun, his brethren, more uneasy than himself, reproached him with his delay; upon which he muttered his spell, called up a spirit, mounted him, reached Rome in the twinkling of an eye, performed his task, and, the service being ended, he stormed the archives of the Vatican, where he burned the compulsory act, and then returned by the same conveyance to Bayeux, which he reached before the mass was completed, and, to the unspeakable joy of the chapter, announced the happy tidings of their deliverance.
So idle and unmeaning is the tale, that I should scarcely have thought it worth while to have repeated it, but for the Latin distich, which, as the story goes, was extemporized by the demon, at the moment when they were flying over the Tuscan sea, and by which he sought to mislead his rider, and to cause him to end his journey beneath the deep.–The sense of the verses is not very perspicuous, but they are remarkable for reading forwards and backwards the same; and though to you they may appear a childish waste of intellect, you will, I am sure, admit them to be ingenious, and they may amuse some of the younger members of your family:–
“Signa te, signa, temere me tangis et angis; Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.”–
I must dismiss the canon of Cambremer, by stating, that I am informed by a friend, that the same story is also found in the lives of sundry other wizards and sorcerers of the good old times.
Bayeux cathedral, like the other Neustrian churches, has been deprived of its sainted relics, and its most precious treasures, in consequence of the successive spoliations which have been inflicted upon it by heathen Normans, heretical Calvinists, and philosophical jacobins. The body of St. Exuperius was carried, in the ninth century, for safety to Corbeil, and the chapter have never been able to recover it: that of St. Regnobert was in after times stolen by the Huguenots. Many are the attempts that have been made to regain the relics of the first bishop of the see; but the town of Corbeil retained possession, whilst the Bajocessians attempted to console themselves by antithetical piety.–“Referamus Deo gratias, nec inde aliquid nos minus habere credamus, quod Corbeliensis civitas pignus sacri corporis vindicavit. Teneant illi tabernaculum beatae animae in cineribus suis; nos ipsam teneamus animam in virtutibus suis: teneant illi ossa, nos merita: apud illos videatur remansisse quod terrae est, nos studeamus habere quod coeli est: amplectantur illi quod sepulchre, nos quod Paradiso continetur. Meminerit et beatior ille vir, utrique quidem loco, sed huic speciali se jure deberi.”–St. Regnobert’s _chasuble_ is however, left to the church, together with his maniple and his stole, all of them articles of costly and elaborate workmanship. They were found in his coffin, when it was opened by the Calvinists; and they are now worn by the bishop, on the anniversary of the saint, as well as on five other high festivals, during the year; at which times, the faithful press with great devotion to kiss them. When not in use, they are kept in an ivory chest, magnificently embossed with solid silver, and bearing an inscription in the Cufic character, purporting that whatever honor men may have given to God, they cannot honor him so much as He deserves. Father Tournemine, the Jesuit, is of opinion, that this box was taken by the French troops, under Charles Martel, in their pillage of the Saracen camp, at the time of the memorable defeat of the infidels; and that it was afterwards presented to Charles the Bald, whose queen, Hermentrude, devoted it to the pious purpose of holding the relics of Regnobert, in gratitude for a cure which the monarch had received through the intercession of the saint. But this is merely a conjecture, and it is not improbable but that the chest may have been brought from Sicily, which abounded with Arabic artificers, at the time when it was occupied by the Normans.
St. Regnobert, who was one of the most illustrious bishops of Bayeux, is placed second on the list, in the _History of the Diocese_; but in the _Gallia Christiana_ he stands twelfth in order. It was customary before the revolution, and it possibly may be so at present, for the inhabitants of the city, upon the twenty-fourth of October, the anniversary of his feast, to bring their domestic animals in solemn procession to the church, there to receive the episcopal benediction, in the same manner as is practised by the Romans with their horses, on the feast of St. Anthony.–St. Lupus, the fourth bishop, and St. Lascivus, the tenth, are remarkable for their names. St. Lupus is said to have been so called from his having destroyed the wolves in the vicinity of Bayeux[92]; and the other is reported to have been descended from the same person, whom Ausonius addresses in the following stanza, which has likewise been applied to this bishop.
“Iste _Lascivus_ patiens vocari,
Nomen indignum probitate vitae
Abnuit nunquam; quia gratum ad aures Esset amicas.”–
But neither among her ancient nor her modern prelates can Bayeux boast of a name equally distinguished as that of Odo. Many were unquestionably the misdeeds of this great man, and many were probably his crimes, but no one who wore the episcopal mitre, ever deserved better of the see. As a statesman, Odo bore a leading part in all the principal transactions of the times: as a soldier, he accompanied the Conqueror to England, fought by his side at Hastings, and by his eloquence and his valor, contributed greatly to the success of that memorable day. Nor was William tardy in acknowledging the merits of his brother; for no sooner did he find himself seated firmly on the throne, than he rewarded Odo with the earldom of Kent, and appointed him his viceroy in England, whilst he himself crossed the channel, to superintend his affairs in Normandy. But the mind which was proof against difficulties, yielded, as too commonly happens, to prosperity. Nothing less than the papacy could satisfy the ambition of Odo: he abused the power with which he was invested in a flagrant manner; and William, finally, disgusted with his proceedings, arrested him with his own hand, and committed him prisoner to the old palace at Rouen, where he continued till the death of the monarch.–The sequel of the story is of the same complexion: more plots, attended now with success, and now with disgrace; till at length the prelate resolved to expiate his sins by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and died on his journey, at Palermo.–Such was Odo in his secular character: as a churchman, historians unanimously agree that he was most zealous for the honor of his diocese, indefatigable in re-building the churches which time or war had destroyed, liberal in endowments, munificent in presents, and ever anxiously intent upon procuring a supply of able ministers, establishing regular discipline, and reforming the morals of the flock committed to his charge.
The Bishop of Bayeux has at all times claimed the distinction of being regarded the first among the suffragan bishops of the Norman church. In the absence of the archbishop, he presides at, the ecclesiastical assemblies and councils. His revenue, before the revolution, was estimated at one hundred thousand livres: per annum. The see, in point of antiquity, even contests for the priority with Rouen. From time immemorial, the chapter has enjoyed the right of mintage; and they appear to have used it till the year 1577, at which time their coin was so much counterfeited, that they were induced to recal it by public proclamation. Their money, which was of the size of a piece of two sous, was stamped, on one side, with a two-headed eagle, and the legend _moneta capituli_; and on the obverse, with the letter V, surrounded by the word _Bajocensis_. The eagle was probably adopted, in allusion to the arms of the see, which were, _gules_; an eagle displayed with two heads, _or_[93].–Another privilege of the chapter was, that no person of illegitimate birth could be allowed to hold place in it, under any pretext or dispensation whatever.–Among their peculiar customs, they imitated that of the see of Rouen, in the annual election of a boy-bishop upon Innocents’-day; a practice prevalent in many churches in Spain and Germany, and notoriously in England at Salisbury. The young chorister took the crozier in his hands, during the first vespers, at the verse in the _Magnificat_, “He has put down the mighty from their seats, and has exalted the humble and meek;” and he resigned his dignity at the same verse in the second vespers.–The ceremony was abolished in 1482.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 91: The following are the dimensions of the church, in French measure, according to Beziers.
FEET.
Height of the central tower 224 Ditto of the two western ditto 230
Length of the interior of the church 296 Width of ditto 76
Height of ditto 76
Length of the nave 140
Width of ditto 38
Ditto of side-aisles 17
Ditto of chapels 15
Length of the transepts 113 Width of ditto 33
Length of the choir 118
Width of ditto 36
]
[Footnote 92: A new St. Lupus is now wanted for the see; for wolves are by no means extinct in the neighborhood of Bayeux. We saw a tame one, kept near the cathedral, which had been taken in the woods, about a year ago, when it was quite young. Wild boars are likewise found in considerable numbers, and the breed is encouraged for the purposes of hunting.]
[Footnote 93: In its origin, the _Baiocco_ of Naples seems to have been the two-penny piece of Bayeux, its denomination being abbreviated from the last word in the legend. It has been supposed that the coin was struck and named by lusty Joan, as a token of her affection towards a Frisick warrier, who, in his own country, was called the _Boynke_, or the Squire; but we think that our etymology is the most natural one.]
LETTER XXIX. CHURCH AND CASTLE OF
CREULLY–FALAISE–CASTLE–CHURCHES-FAIR OF GUIBRAY.
(_Falaise, August_, 1818.)
Previously to quitting Bayeux, we paid our respects to M. Pluquet, a diligent antiquary, who has been for some time past engaged in writing a history of the city. His collections for this purpose are extensive, and the number of curious books which he possesses is very considerable. Amongst those which he shewed to us, the works relating to Normandy constituted an important portion. His manuscript missals are numerous and valuable. I was also much pleased by the inspection of an old copy of Aristophanes, which had formerly belonged to Rabelais, and bore upon its title-page the mark of his ownership, in the hand-writing of the witty, though profligate, satirist himself. M. Pluquet’s kindness allowed me to make the tracing of the signature, which I send you.–
[Illustration: Rabelais hand-writing]
Such an addition as we here find to Rabelais’ name, denoting that the owner of a book considered it as being the property of his friends conjointly with himself, is not of uncommon occurrence. Our friend, Mr. Dibdin, who had been here shortly before us, and had carried off, as we were told, some works of great rarity from this collection, has enumerated more than one instance of the kind in his _Bibliographical Decameron_; and the valuable library of my excellent friend, Mr. Sparrow, of Worlingham, contains an Erasmus, which was the property of Sir Thomas Wotton, and bears, stamped upon its covers, _Thomae Wotton et amicorum_.
From Bayeux we returned to Caen, by way of Creully, passing along bad roads, through an open, uninteresting country, almost wholly cropped with buck-wheat.–The barony of Creully was erected by Henry Ist, in favor of his natural son, the Earl of Gloucester: it was afterwards held by different noble families, and continued to be so till the time of the revolution. At that period, it gave a title to a branch of the line of Montmorenci, whose emigration caused the domain to be confiscated, and sold as national property; but the baronial castle is still standing, and displays, in two of its towers and in a chimney of unusual form, a portion of its ancient character: the rest of the building is modernized into a spruce, comfortable residence, and is at this time occupied by a countryman of our own, General Hodgson.
The church at Creully is one of the most curious we have seen. The nave, side-aisles, and choir, are all purely Norman, except at the extremities. The piers are very massy; the arches wide and low; the capitals covered with rude, but most remarkable sculpture, which is varied on every pillar. Round the arches of the nave runs a band of the chevron ornament; and over them is a row of lancet windows, devoid of ornament, and sunk in a wall of extraordinary thickness. Externally, all is modernized.
The view of Caen, on entering from this direction, is still more advantageous than that on the approach from Lisieux. Time would not allow of our making any stop at the town on our return: we therefore proceeded immediately to Falaise, passing again through an open and monotonous country, which, thoughtfully cultivated, has a most dreary aspect from the scantiness of its population. We saw, indeed, as we went along, distant villages, thinly scattered, in the landscape, but no other traces of habitations; and we proceeded upwards of five leagues on our way, before we arrived at a single house by the road-side.
[Illustration: Castle of Falaise]
Falaise appeared but the more beautiful, from the impression which the desolate scenery of the previous country had left upon our minds. The contrast was almost equally pleasing and equally striking, as when, in travelling through Derbyshire, after having passed a tract of dreary moors, that seems to lengthen as you go, you suddenly descend into the lovely vallies of Matlock or of Dovedale. Not that the vale of Falaise may compete with those of Derbyshire, for picturesque beauty or bold romantic character; but it has features exclusively its own; and its deficiency in natural advantages is in some measure compensated, by the accessories bestowed by art. The valley is fertile and well wooded: the town itself, embosomed within rows of lofty elms, stretches along the top of a steep rocky ridge, which rises abrupt from the vale below, presenting an extensive line of buildings, mixed with trees, flanked towards the east by the venerable remains of the castle of the Norman Dukes, and at the opposite extremity, by the church of the suburb of Guibray, planted upon an eminence. Near the centre stands the principal church of Falaise, that of St. Gervais; and in front of the whole extends the long line of the town walls, varied with towers, and approached by a mound across the valley, which, as at Edinburgh, holds the place of a bridge.
The name _Falaise_, denotes the position of the town: it is said to be a word of Celtic origin; but I should rather suppose it to be derived from the Saxon, and to be a modification of the German word, _fels_, a rock, in which conjecture I find I am borne out by Adelung: _falesia_, in modern Latinity, and _falaise_, in French, signify a rocky shore. Hence, Brito, at the commencement of his relation of the siege by Philip Augustus, says,
“Vicus erat scabra circumdatus undique rupe, Ipsius asperitate loci Falaesa vocatus, Normannae in medio regionis, cujus in alta Turres rupe sedent et mA”nia; sic ut ad illam Jactus nemo putet aliquos contingere posse.”–
The dungeon of Falaise, one of the proudest relics of Norman antiquity, is situated on a very bold and lofty rock, broken into fantastic and singular masses, and covered with luxuriant vegetation. The keep which towers above it is of excellent masonry: the stones are accurately squared, and put together with great neatness, and the joints are small; and the arches are turned clearly and distinctly, with the key-stone or wedge accurately placed in all of them. Some parts of the wall, towards the interior ballium, are not built of squared free-stone; but of the dark stone of the country, disposed in a zigzag, or as it is more commonly called, in a herring-bone direction, with a great deal of mortar in the interstices: the buttresses, or rather piers, are of small projection, but great width. The upper story, destroyed about forty years since, was of a different style of architecture. According to an old print, it terminated with a large battlement, and bartizan towers at the angles. This dungeon was formerly divided into several apartments; in one of the lower of which was found, about half a century ago, a very ancient tomb, of good workmanship, ornamented with a sphynx at each end, but bearing no inscription whatever. Common report ascribed the coffin to Talbot, who was for many years governor of the castle; and at length an individual engraved upon it an epitaph to his honor; but the fraud was discovered, and the sarcophagus put aside, as of no account. The second, or principal, story of the keep, now forms a single square room, about fifty feet wide, lighted by circular-headed windows, each divided into two by a short and massy central pillar, whose capital is altogether Norman. On one of the capitals is sculptured a child leading a lamb, a representation, as it is foolishly said, of the Conqueror, whom tradition alleges to have been born in the apartment to which this window belonged: another pillar has an elegant capital, composed of interlaced bands.
Connected with the dungeon by a stone staircase is a small apartment, very much dilapidated, but still retaining a portion of its original facing of Caen stone. It was from the window of this apartment, as the story commonly goes, that Duke Robert first saw the beautiful Arlette, drawing water from the streamlet below, and was enamoured of her charms, and took her to his bed.–According to another version of the tale, the earliest interview between the prince and his fair mistress, took place as Robert was returning from the chace, with his mind full of anger against the inhabitants of Falaise, for having presumed to kill the deer which he had commanded should be preserved for his royal pastime. In this offence the curriers of the town had borne the principal share, and they were therefore principally marked out for punishment. But, fortunately for them, Arlette, the daughter of one Verpray, the most culpable of the number, met the offended Duke while riding through the street, and with her beauty so fascinated him, that she not only obtained the pardon of her father and his associates, but became his mistress, and continued so as long as he lived. From her, if we may give credence to the old chroniclers, is derived our English word, _harlot_. The fruit of their union was William the Conqueror, whose illegitimate birth, and the low extraction of his mother, served on more than one occasion as a pretext for conspiracies against his throne, and were frequently the subject of personal mortification to himself.–The walls in this part of the castle are from eight to nine feet thick. A portion of them has been hollowed out, so as to form a couple of small rooms. The old door-way of the keep is at the angle; the returns are reeded, ending in a square impost; the arch above is destroyed.
Talbot’s tower, thus called for having been built by that general, in 1430 and the two subsequent years, is connected with the keep by means, of a long passage with lancet windows, that widen greatly inwards. It is more than one hundred feet high, and is a beautiful piece of masonry, as perfect, apparently, as on the day when it was erected, and as firm as the rock on which it stands. This tower is ascended by a staircase concealed within the substance of the walls, whose thickness is full fifteen feet towards the base, and does not decrease more than three feet near the summit. Another aperture in them serves for a well, which thus communicates with every apartment in the tower. Most of the arches in this tower have circular heads: the windows are square.–The walls and towers which encircle the keep are of much later date; the principal gate-way is pointed. Immediately on entering, is seen the very ancient chapel, dedicated to St. Priscus or, as he is called in French, St. Prix. The east end with three circular-headed windows retains its original lines: the masonry is firm and good. Fantastic corbels surround the summit of the lateral walls. Within, a semi-circular arch resting upon short pillars with sculptured capitals, divides the choir from the nave. In other respects the building has been much altered.–Henry Vth repaired it in 1418, and it has been since dilapidated and restored.–A pile of buildings beyond, wholly modern in the exterior, is now inhabited as a seminary or college. There are some circular arches within, which shew that these buildings belonged to the original structure.
Altogether the castle is a noble ruin. Though the keep is destitute of the enrichments of Norwich or Castle Rising, it possesses an impressive character of strength, which is much increased by the extraordinary freshness of the masonry. The fosses of the castle; are planted with lofty trees, which shade and intermingle with the towers and ramparts, and on every side they groupe themselves with picturesque beauty. It is said that the municipality intend to _restore_ Talbot’s tower and the keep, by replacing the demolished battlements; but I should hope that no other repairs may take place, except such as may be necessary for the preservation of the edifice; and I do not think it needs any, except the insertion of clamps in the central columns of two of the windows which are much shattered[94].
From the summit we enjoyed a delightful prospect: at our feet lay the town of Falaise, so full of trees, that it seemed almost to deserve the character, given by old Fuller to Norwich, of _rus in urbe_: the distant country presented an undulating outline, agreeably diversified with woods and corn-fields, and spotted with gentlemen’s seats; while within a very short distance to the west, rose another ridgy mass of bare brown rock, known by the name of Mont Mirat, and still retaining a portion of the intrenchments, raised by our countrymen when they besieged Falaise, in 1417.–By this eminence the castle is completely commanded, and it is not easy to understand how the fortress could be a tenable position; as the garrison who manned the battlements of the dungeon and Talbot’s tower, must have been exposed to the missiles discharged from the catapults and balistas planted on Mont Mirat.
The history of the castle is inseparably connected with that of the town: its origin may safely be referred to remote antiquity, the time, most probably, of the earliest Norman Dukes. If, however, we could agree with the fanciful author just quoted, it would claim a much earlier date. The very fact of its having a dungeon-tower, he maintains to be a proof of its having been erected by Julius Caesar inasmuch as the word, _dungeon_, or, as it is written in French, _donjon_, is nothing but a corruption of _Domus Julii_! More than once in the course of this correspondence, I have called your attention to the fancies, or, to speak in plain terms, the absurdities, of theoretical antiquaries. The worthy priest, to whom we are indebted for the _Recherches Historiques sur Falaise_, “out-herods Herod.” Writers of this description are curious and amusing, let their theories but rest upon the basis of fair probability. Even when we reject their reasonings, we are pleased with their ingenuity; and they serve, to borrow an expression from Horace, “the purpose of a whetstone.” But M. Langevin has nothing farther to offer, than gratuitous assertion or vague conjecture; and yet, upon the faith of these, he insists upon our believing, that the foundation of Falaise took place very shortly after the deluge; that its name is derived from _Fele_, the cat of Diana, or from the less pure source of _Phaloi-Isis_; that the present site of the castle was that of a temple, dedicated to Belenus and Abraxas; and that every stone of remarkable form in the neighborhood, was either so shapened by the Druids, (notwithstanding it is the character of rocks, like those at Falaise, to assume fantastic figures,) or was at least appropriated by the Celtic priesthood to typify the sun, or moon, or stars.
Various tombs, stone-hatchets, &c., have been dug up at Tassilly, a village within six miles of Falaise, and fragments of mosaic pavements have been discovered in the immediate vicinity of the castle[95]; but history and tradition are alike silent as to the origin of these remains.–The first historical mention of Falaise is in the year 1027; during the reign of the fifth Norman Duke, Richard IIIrd, at which period this town was one of the strong holds of the duchy, and afforded shelter to Robert, the father of the Conqueror, when he rebelled against his elder brother. Falaise on that occasion sustained the first of the nine sieges, by which it has procured celebrity in history.–Fourteen years only elapsed before it was exposed to a second, through the perfidy of Toustain de Goz, Count of Hiesmes, who had been intrusted with the charge of the castle, and who, upon finding that his own district was ravaged by the forces of the King of France, voluntarily offered to surrender to that monarch the fortress under his command, on condition that his territory, the Hiesmois, should be spared. But Duke William succeeded in retaking the place of his birth before the traitor had an opportunity of introducing the troops of his new ally.–In the years 1106 and 1139, Falaise opposed a successful resistance to the armies of Henry Ist, and of Geoffrey Plantagenet. Upon the first of these occasions, the Count of Maine, the general of the English forces, retired with shame from before the walls; and Henry was foiled in all his attempts to gain possession of the castle, till the battle of Tinchbray had invested him with the ducal mantle, and had induced Robert himself to deliver up the fortress in person to his more fortunate brother. On the second occasion, Robert Marmion, lord of the neighboring barony of Marmion le Fontenay, a name equally illustrious in Norman and in English story, held Falaise for Eustace of Boulogne, son to Stephen, and twice repelled the attacks of the husband of the Empress Maud.–The fourth siege was conducted with different success, by Philip Augustus: for seven days the citizens quietly witnessed the preparations of the French monarch; and then, either alarmed by the impending conflict, or disgusted by the conduct of their own sovereign, who had utterly deserted them, they opened their gates to the enemy.–In 1417 the case was far otherwise, though the result was the same. Henry Vth attacked Falaise upon the fourth of November, and continued to cannonade it till the middle of the following February; and, even then, the surrender was attributed principally to famine. Great injuries were sustained by the town in the course of this long siege; but, to the credit of our countrymen, the efforts made towards the reparation of them were at least proportionate. The fortifications were carefully restored; the chapel was rebuilt and endowed afresh; Talbot’s tower was added to the keep; and a suite of apartments, also named after that great captain, was erected in the castle.–The resistance made by the English garrison of Falaise in 1450, at the time when we were finally expelled from the duchy, was far from equal to that which the French, had previously shewn. Vigour was indeed displayed in repeated sallies, but six days sufficed to put the French general in possession of the place. Disheartened troops, cooped up in a fortress without hope of succour, offer but faint opposition; and Falaise was then the last place which held out in Normandy, excepting, only Domfront and Cherbourg, both which were taken almost immediately afterwards.–Falaise, from this time forwards, suffered no more from foreign enemies: the future miseries of the town were inflicted by the hands of its own countrymen. In common with many other places in France, it was doomed to learn from hard experience, that “alta sedent civilis vulnera dextrae.”–Instigated by the Count de Brissac, governor of the town, and one of the most able generals of the league, the inhabitants were immoveable in their determination to resist the introduction of tenets which they regarded as a fatal variance from the Catholic faith. The troops of Henry IIIrd, in alliance with those of his more illustrious successor, were vainly brought against Falaise in 1589, by the Duc de Montpensier; a party of enthusiastic peasants, called _Gautiers_, from the name of a neighboring village, where their association originated, harassed the assailants unremittingly, and rendered such effectual assistance to the garrison, that the siege was obliged to be raised.–But it was only raised to be renewed at the conclusion of the same year, by Henry of Bourbon, in person, whom the tragical end of his late ally had placed upon the throne of France. Brissac had now a different enemy to deal with: he answered the king’s summons to surrender, by pleading his oath taken upon the holy sacrament to the contrary; and he added that, if it should ultimately prove necessary for him to enter into any negotiation, he would at least delay it for six months to come. “Then, by heavens!” replied Henry, “I will change his months into days, and grant him absolution;” and; so saying, he commenced a furious cannonade, which soon caused a breach, and, in seven days, he carried the town by assault. Brissac, who, on the capture of the fortress, had retired into the keep, found himself shortly afterwards obliged to capitulate; and I am sorry to add, that the terms which he proposed and obtained, were not of a nature to be honorable to his character. The security of his own life and of that of seven of his party, was the principal stipulation in the articles. The rest of the garrison were abandoned to the mercy of the conqueror, who contented himself with hanging seven of them in memorial of the seven days of the siege; but, if we may believe the French historians, always zealous for the honor of their monarchs, and especially of this monarch, Henry selected the sufferers from among those, who, for their crimes, had, subjected themselves to the pain of death.
From these various attacks, but principally from those of 1417 and 1589, the fortifications of Falaise have suffered materially; and since the last no care has been taken to repair them. The injuries sustained at that period, and the more fatal, though less obvious ones, wrought by the silent operation of two centuries of neglect, have brought the walls and towers to their present state of dilapidation.
The people of Falaise are commonly supposed to be Normans IºI+-I” I muI3/4I?II.I1/2 [English. Not in Original: pre-eminently, especially, above all]; and when a Norman is introduced upon the French stage, he calls himself a Falesian, just as any Irishman, in an English farce, is presumed to come from Tipperary. The town in the French royal calendar is stated to contain about fourteen thousand inhabitants; but we are assured that the real number does not exceed nine thousand. Its staple trade is the manufacture of stockings, coarse caps, and lace. The streets are wide; and the public fountains, which are continually playing, impart a freshness, which, at the present burning season, is particularly agreeable.–The town now retains only four churches, two within its precincts, and two in the suburbs. The revolution has deprived it of eight others. Of those which are now standing, the most ancient is that situated near the castle, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Langevin assures us that it was built upon the ruins of the temple of Fele, Isis, Belenus, and the heavenly host of constellations, and that in the fifth century it changed its heathen for its Christian patrons. The oldest part (a very small one it is) of the present structure, appertains to a building which was consecrated in 1126, by the Archbishop of Rouen, in the presence of Henry Ist, but which was almost entirely destroyed by the cannonade in the fifteenth century. An inscription in gothic letters, near the entrance, relates, that after this desolation, a beginning was made towards the re-building of the church, “in 1438, a year of war, and death, and plague, and famine;” but it is certain that not much of the part now standing can be referred even to that period. The choir was not completed till the middle of the sixteenth century, nor the Lady-Chapel till the beginning of the following one. Architecturally considered, therefore, the church is a medley of various styles and ages.
The larger church, that of St. Gervais and St. Protais, is said to have been originally the ducal chapel, and to stand in the immediate vicinity of the site of the Conqueror’s palace, now utterly destroyed. According to an ancient manuscript, this church was consecrated at the same time as that of the Trinity. The intersecting circular-headed arches of its tower are curious. The Norman corbel-table and clerestory windows still remain; and the exterior of the whole edifice promises a gratification to a lover of architectural antiquity, which the inside is little calculated to realize.–An invading army ruined the church of the Trinity; civil discord did the same for that of St. Gervais. The Huguenots, not content with plundering the treasure, actually set fire to the building, and well nigh consumed it: hence, the choir is the work of the year 1580, and the southern wall of the nave is a more recent construction.
We see Falaise to a great advantage: every inn is crowded; every shop is decked out; and the streets are full of life and activity; all in preparation for the fair, which commences in three days, on the fifteenth of this month, the anniversary of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin. This fair, which is considered second to no other in France, excepting that of Beaucaire, is held in the suburbs of Guibray, and takes its name from the place where it is held. For the institution, Falaise is indebted to William the Conqueror; and from it the place derives the greatest share of its prosperity and importance. During the fourteen days that the fair continues, the town is filled with the neighboring gentry, as well as with merchants and tradesmen of every description, not only from the cities of Normandy, but from Paris and the distant provinces, and even from foreign countries. The revolution itself respected the immunities granted to the fair of Guibray, without, at the same time, having the slightest regard, either to its royal founder, or its religious origin.–An image of the Virgin, discovered under-ground by the scratching and bleating of a lamb, first gave the stamp of sanctity to Guibray. Miraculous means had been employed for the discovery of this statue; miraculous powers were sure to be seated in the image. Pilgrims crowded from all places to witness and to adore; and hawkers, and pedlars, and, as I have seen inscribed upon a hand-bill at Paris, “the makers of he-saints and of she-saints,” found Guibray a place of lucrative resort. Their numbers annually increased, and thus the fair originated.–We are compelled to hasten, or we would have stopped to have witnessed the ceremonies, and joined the festivities on the occasion. Already more than one field is covered with temporary buildings, each distinguished by a flag, bearing the name and trade of the occupant; already, too, the mountebanks and showmen have taken their stand for the amusement of the company, and the relaxation of the traders; and, what is a necessary consequence of such assemblages, you cannot stir without being pestered with crowds of boys, proffering their services to transport your wares.
The church of Guibray, like the others of Falaise, offers specimens of Norman architecture, strangely altered and half concealed by modern innovations. In the first syllable of the name of the place, you will observe the French word for misletoe, and may thence infer, and probably not without reason, the antiquity of the station; the latter syllable, albeit in England sheep are not wont to _bray_, is supposed by the pious to have reference to the bleating of the lamb, which led to the discovery of the miraculous image.–Etymology is a wide district in a pleasant country, strangely intersected by many and deceitful paths. He that ventures upon the exploring of it, requires the utmost caution, and the constant control of sober reason: woe will be sure to betide the unfortunate wight, who, in such a situation, gives the reins to fancy, and suffers imagination to usurp the place of judgment, without reflecting, as has been observed by the poet on a somewhat similar occasion, that
“Tis more to curb than urge the generous steed, Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed.”
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 94: The outline of the castle is egg-shaped; and the following are its dimensions, in French measure, according to M. Langevin.–Length, 720 feet; mean width, 420; quantity of ground contained within the walls, two acres and a perch.]
[Footnote 95: _Recherches Historiques sur Falaise_, p. XIX. and XXIX.]
LETTER XXX. 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 passed 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 _detour_ 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 passes, 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, assuming 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 sanctity, 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 Napoleon, 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 assemblies of his nobles 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 noble 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 pass, 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 shore. Hence, according to Le Brasseur[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, illustrative 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 mass-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 glass 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 Francais inedits_. 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 glass, some of it of very good quality. Scripture history and personages occupy, as usual, the principal 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 buttresses are enriched with canopies and other sculpture; and there was originally a highly-wrought balustrade, 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 assassination of his predecessor, in 1589.
On leaving this place, we passed through the forest of the same name, an extensive tract covered with young trees, principally 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 spacious 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 buttresses.–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 Chateau 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