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NORMANDY PICTURESQUE.

by

HENRY BLACKBURN,
Author of 'Travelling in Spain,' 'The Pyrenees,'
'Artists and Arabs,' Etc.

Travelling Edition.

With Appendix of Routes and List of Watering-Places.







[Illustration: JOAN OF ARC'S HOUSE AT ROUEN]



[Illustration: Map]




London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, Crown Buildings, Fleet Street.
1870.
London:
Printed by William Clowes and Sons,
Stamford Street & Charing Cross.





PREFACE

TO

"_TRAVELLING EDITION._"


In issuing the Travelling Edition of "Normandy Picturesque," the
publishers deem it right to state that the body of the work is identical
with the Christmas Edition; but that the APPENDIX contains
additional information for the use of travellers, some of which is not
to be found in any Guide, or Handbook, to France.

The descriptions of places and buildings in Normandy call for little or
no alteration in the present edition, excepting in the case of one
town, concerning which the Author makes the following note:--

"The traveller who may arrive at Pont Audemer this year, with
'_Normandy Picturesque_' in his hand, will find matters strangely
altered since these notes were written; he will find that a railway
has been driven into the middle of the town, that many old houses
have disappeared, that the inhabitants have left off their white
caps, and have given up their hearts to modern ways.

"Such changes have come rapidly upon Pont Audemer, but we must not,
in consequence, alter our description of it; for the old houses and
the old customs are dear memories, and the more worth recording
because the reality has faded before our eyes."

_London, May, 1870._

CONTENTS.

PAGE
CHAP. I.--ON THE WING 1

" II.--PONT AUDEMER 13

" III.--LISIEUX 35

" IV.--CAEN--DIVES 51

" V.--BAYEUX 83

" VI.--ST. LO--COUTANCES--GRANVILLE 109

" VII.--AVRANCHES--MONT ST. MICHAEL 135

" VIII.--VIRE--MORTAIN--FALAISE 162

" IX.--ROUEN 185

" X.--THE VALLEY OF THE SEINE 217

" XI.--ARCHITECTURE AND COSTUME 243

" XII.--THE WATERING PLACES OF NORMANDY 265

APPENDIX 283




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


JOAN OF ARC'S HOUSE AT ROUEN _By_ S. PROUT.
_Frontispiece_.


CHAP. PAGE

II.--Market-place at Pont Audemer S. P. HALL
(_From a sketch by A. E. Browne._) 14

" A Sketch at Pont Audemer M. TIBIALONG 18

" Old Houses at Pont Audemer A. E. BROWNE 29

III.--Wood-carving at Lisieux A. E. BROWNE 40

IV.--Church of St. Pierre, Caen M. CLERGET 54

" A Sketch, at Caen M. TIBIALONG 64

" Old Woman of Caen M. TIRARD 69

V.--Bayeux Cathedral H. BLACKBURN 83

" Corner of House at Bayeux A. E. BROWNE 86

" Ancient Tablet in Cathedral H. BLACKBURN 90

" Facsimile of Bayeux Tapestry A. SEVERN 103

VI.--A Sketch, at Cherbourg M. TIBIALONG 110

" Exterior Pulpit at St. Lo _From a Photograph_ 116

" A 'Toiler of the Sea' S. P. HALL 132

" Mont St. Michael H. BLACKBURN 135

VII.--Church near Avranches H. BLACKBURN 144

" Ancient Cross H. BLACKBURN 147

VIII.--Clock Tower at Vire H. BLACKBURN 171

IX.--Rouen Cathedral M. CLERGET 194

X.--Market-women--Lower Normandy S. P. HALL
(_From a sketch by A. E. Browne._) 217

XI.--Modern houses at Houlgate H. BLACKBURN 253

" 'The Wrestlers' GUSTAVE DORE 257




NORMANDY PICTURESQUE.




CHAPTER I.

_ON THE WING._


It is, perhaps, rather a subject for reproach to English people that the
swallows and butterflies of our social system are too apt to forsake
their native woods and glens in the summer months, and to fly to 'the
Continent' for recreation and change of scene; whilst poets tell us,
with eloquent truth, that there is a music in the branches of England's
trees, and a soft beauty in her landscape more soothing and gracious in
their influence than 'aught in the world beside.'

Whether it be wise or prudent, or even pleasant, to leave our island in
the very height of its season, so to speak--at a time when it is most
lovely, when the sweet fresh green of the meadows is changing to bloom
of harvest and gold of autumn--for countries the features of which are
harder, and the landscape, if bolder, certainly less beautiful, for a
climate which, if more sunny, is certainly more bare and burnt up, and
for skies which, if more blue, lack much of the poetry of cloud-land--we
will not stay to enquire; but admitting the fact that, for various
reasons, English people _will_ go abroad in the autumn, and that there
is a fashion, we might almost say a passion, for 'flying, flying south,'
which seems irresistible--we will endeavour in the following pages to
suggest a compromise, in the shape of a tour which shall include the
undoubted delight and charm of foreign travel, with scenery more like
England than any other in Europe, which shall be within an easy distance
from our shores, and within the limits of a short purse; and which
should have one special attraction for us, viz., that the country to be
seen and the people to be visited bear about them a certain English
charm--the men a manliness, and the women a beauty with which we may be
proud to claim kindred.

We speak of the north-west corner of France, divided from us (and
perhaps once not divided) by the British Channel--the district called
NORMANDY (_Neustria_), and sometimes, 'nautical France,' which
includes the Departments of _Calvados_, _Eure_, _Orne_, and part of _La
Manche_. It comprises, as is well known, but a small part of France, and
occupies an area of about one hundred and fifty miles by seventy-five,
but in this small compass is comprehended so much that is interesting
to English people that we shall find quite enough to see and to do
within its limits alone.

If the reader will turn to the little map on our title-page, he will see
at a glance the position of the principal towns in Normandy, which we
may take in the following order, making England (or London) our starting
point:--

Crossing the Channel from Southampton to Havre by night, or from
Newhaven to Dieppe by day, we proceed at once to the town of PONT
AUDEMER, situated about six miles from Quillebeuf and eight from
Honfleur, both on the left bank of the Seine. From Havre, Pont Audemer
may be reached in a few hours, by water, and from Dieppe, Rouen or Paris
there is now railway communication. From Pont Audemer we go to
LISIEUX (by road or railway), from Lisieux to CAEN, BAYEUX and ST. LO,
where the railway ends, and we take the diligence to COUTANCES,
GRANVILLE, and AVRANCHES. After a visit to the island of Mont St.
Michael, we may return (by diligence) by way of MORTAIN, VIRE, and
FALAISE; thence to ROUEN, and by the valley of the Seine, to the
sea-coast.[1]

The whole journey is a short and inexpensive one, and may occupy a
fortnight, a month, or three months (the latter is not too long), and
may be made a simple _voyage de plaisir_, or turned to good account for
artistic study.

But there is one peculiarity about it that should be mentioned at the
outset. The route we have indicated, simple as it seems, and most easily
to be carried out as it would appear, is really rather difficult of
accomplishment, for the one reason that the journey is almost always
made on _cross-roads_. The traveller who follows it will continually
find himself delayed because he is not going to Paris. 'Paris is France'
under the Imperial regime, and at nearly every town or railway station
he will be reminded of the fact; and, if he be not careful, will find
himself and his baggage whisked off to the capital.[2] If he wishes to
see Normandy, and to carry out the idea of a provincial tour in its
integrity, he must resist temptation, _have nothing to do with Paris_,
and put up with slow trains, creeping diligences, and second-rate inns.

The network of roads and railways in France converge as surely to the
capital as the threads of a spider's web lead to its centre, and in
pursuing his route through the bye-ways of Normandy the traveller will
be much in the position of the fly that has stepped upon its
meshes--every road and railway leading to the capital where '_M.
d'Araignee_' the enticing, the alluring, the fascinating, the most
extravagant--is ever waiting for his prey.

From the moment he sets foot on the shores of Normandy, Paris will be
made ever present to him. Let him go, for example, to the railway
station at any port on his arrival in France, and he will find
everything--people, goods, and provisions, being hurried off to the
capital as if there were no other place to live in, or to provide for.
Let him (in pursuit of the journey we have suggested) tread cautiously
on the _fil de fer_ at Lisieux, for he will pass over one of the main
lines that connect the world of Fashion at Paris with another world of
Fashion by the sea.[3] Let him, when at St. Lo, apply for a place in
the diligence for Avranches, and he will be told by a polite official
that nothing can be done until the mail train arrives from Paris; and
let him not be surprised if, on his arrival at Avranches, his name be
chronicled in the local papers as the latest arrival from the capital.
Let him again, on his homeward journey, try and persuade the people of
Mortain and Vire that he does _not_ intend to visit Paris, and he will
be able to form some estimate of its importance in the eyes of the
French people.

We draw attention to this so pointedly at the outset, because it is
altogether inconsistent and wide of our purpose in making a quiet, and
we may add, economical, visit to Normandy, to do, as is the general
custom with travellers--spend half their time and most of their money in
Paris.

Thus much in outline for the ordinary English traveller on a holiday
ramble; but the artist or the architect need not go so far a-field. If
we might make a suggestion to him, especially to the architect, we would
say, take only the first four towns on our list (continuing the journey
to Coutances, or returning by Rouen if there be opportunity), and he
will find enough to last him a summer.[4] If he has never set foot in
Normandy before we may promise him an aesthetic treat beyond his dreams.
He will have his idols both of wood and stone--wood for dwelling, and
stone for worship; at PONT AUDEMER, the simple domestic
architecture of the middle ages, and at LISIEUX, the more
ornate and luxurious; passing on to CAEN, he will have (in
ecclesiastical architecture) the memorial churches of William the
Conqueror, and, in the neighbouring city of BAYEUX (in one
building), examples of the 'early,' as well as the more elaborate,
gothic of the middle ages.

If the architect, or art student, will but make this little pilgrimage
in its integrity, if he will, like Christian, walk in faith--turning
neither to the right hand nor to the left, and shunning the broad road
which leads to destruction--he will be rewarded.

There are two paths for the architect in Normandy, as elsewhere--paths
which we may call the 'simple right' and the 'elaborate wrong,' and the
right path is sometimes as difficult to follow as the path of virtue.

But both artist and amateur will revel alike in the beauty of landscape,
in the variety of form and colour of the old buildings, and in the
costume of the people; and we cannot imagine a more pleasant and
complete change from the heat and pressure of a London season than to
drop down (suddenly, as it were, like a bird making a swoop in the air),
into the midst of the quiet, primitive population of a town like Pont
Audemer, not many miles removed from the English coast, but at least a
thousand in the habits and customs of the people. An artist of any
sensibility could scarcely do it, the shock would be too great, the
delight too much to be borne; but the ordinary reader, who has prepared
his mind to some extent by books of travel, or the tourist, who has come
out simply for a holiday, may enjoy the change as he never enjoyed
anything before.

In the following pages we do not profess to describe each place on the
route we have suggested, but rather to record a few notes, made at
various times during a sojourn in Normandy; notes--not intended to be
exhaustive, or even as complete and comprehensive in description, as
ordinary books of travel, but which--written in the full enjoyment of
summer time in this country, in sketching in the open air, and in the
exploration of its mediaeval towns--may perchance impart something of the
author's enthusiasm to his unknown readers, when scattered upon the
winds of a publisher's breeze.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER II.

_PONT AUDEMER._


About one hundred and fifty miles in a direct line from the door of the
Society of British Architects in Conduit Street, London (and almost
unknown, we venture to say, to the majority of its members), sleeps the
little town of PONT AUDEMER, with its quaint old gables, its
tottering houses, its Gothic 'bits,' its projecting windows, carved oak
galleries, and streets of time-worn buildings--centuries old. Old
dwellings, old customs, old caps, old tanneries, set in a landscape of
bright green hills.[5]

'Old as the hills,' and almost as unchanged in aspect, are the ways of
the people of Pont Audemer, who dress and tan hides, and make merry as
their fathers did before them. For several centuries they have devoted
themselves to commerce and the arts of peace, and in the enthusiasm of
their business have desecrated one or two churches into tanneries. But
they are a conservative and primitive people, loving to do as their
ancestors did, and to dwell where they dwelt; they build their houses to
last for several generations, and take pride and interest in the 'family
mansion,' a thing unknown and almost impossible amongst the middle
classes of most communities.

[Illustration: MARKET PLACE, PONT AUDEMER.]

Pont Audemer was once warlike; it had its castle in feudal times
(destroyed in the 14th century), and the legend exists that cannon was
here first used in warfare. It has its history of wars in the time of
the Norman dukes, but its aspect is now quiet and peaceful, and its
people appear happy and contented; the little river Rille winds about
it, and spreads its streamlets like branches through the streets, and
sparkles in the evening light. Like Venice, it has its 'silent
highways;' like Venice, also, on a smaller and humbler scale, it has its
old facades and lintels drooping to the water's edge; like Venice, too,
we must add, that it has its odours here and there--odours not always
proceeding from the tanneries.

In the chief place of the _arrondissement_, and in a rapidly increasing
town, containing about six thousand inhabitants; with a reputation for
healthiness and cheapness of living, and with a railway from Paris, we
must naturally look for changes and modern ways; but Pont Audemer is
still essentially old, and some of its inhabitants wear the caps, as in
our illustration, which were sketched only yesterday in the
market-place.

If we take up our quarters at the old-fashioned inn called the _Pot
d'Etain_, we shall find much to remind us of the 15th century. If we
take a walk by the beautiful banks of the Rille on a summer's evening,
or in the fields where the peasants are at work, we shall find the
aspect curiously English, and in the intonation of the voices the
resemblance is sometimes startling; we seem hardly amongst
foreigners--both in features and in voice there is a strong family
likeness. There is a close tie of blood relationship no doubt, of
ancient habits and natural tastes; but, in spite of railways and
steamboats, the two peoples know very little of each other.

That young girl with the plain white cap fitting close to her hair--who
tends the flocks on the hill side, and puts all her power and energy
into the little matter of knitting a stocking--is a Norman maiden, a
lineal descendant, it may be, of some ancient house, whose arms we may
find in our own heraldic albums. She is noble by nature, and has the
advantage over her coroneted cousins in being permitted to wear a white
cap out of doors, and an easy and simple costume; in the fact of her
limbs being braced by a life spent in the open air, and her head not
being plagued with the proprieties of May Fair. She is pretty; but what
is of more importance she knows how to cook, and she has a little store
of money in a bank. She has been taught enough for her station, and has
few wishes beyond it; and some day she will marry Jean, and happy will
be Jean.

That stalwart warrior (whom we see on the next page), sunning himself
outside his barrack door, having just clapped his helmet on the head of
a little boy in blouse and sabots, is surely a near relation to our
guardsman; he is certainly brave, he is full of fun and intelligence, he
very seldom takes more wine than is good for him, and a game at
dominoes delights his soul.

[Illustration]

But it is in the market-place of Pont Audemer that we shall obtain the
best idea of the place and of the people.

On market mornings and on fete days, when the _Place_ is crowded with
old and young,--when all the caps (of every variety of shape, from the
'helmet' to the _bonnet-rouge_), and all the old brown coats with short
tails--are collected together, we have a picture, the like of which we
may have seen in rare paintings, but very seldom realize in life. Of the
tumult of voices on these busy mornings, of the harsh discordant sounds
that sometimes fill the air, we must not say much, remembering their
continual likeness to our own; but viewed, picturesquely, it is a sight
not to be forgotten, and one that few English people are aware can be
witnessed so near home.

Here the artist will find plenty of congenial occupation, and
opportunities (so difficult to meet with in these days) of sketching
both architecture and people of a picturesque type--groups in the
market-place, groups down by the river fishing under the trees, groups
at windows of old hostelries, and seated at inn doors; horses in clumsy
wooden harness; calves and pigs, goats and sheep; women at fruit stalls,
under tents and coloured umbrellas; piles upon piles of baskets, a
wealth of green things, and a bright fringe of fruit and flowers,
arranged with all the fanciful grace of "_les dames des halles_," in
Paris.[6]

All this, and much more the artist finds to his hand, and what does the
architect discover? First of all, that if he had only come here before
he might have saved himself an immensity of thought and trouble, for he
would have found such suggestions for ornament in wood carving, for
panels, doorways, and the like, of so good a pattern, and so old, that
they are new to the world of to-day; he would have found houses built
out over the rivers, looking like pieces of old furniture, ranged side
by side--rich in colour and wonderfully preserved, with their wooden
gables, carved in oak of the fifteenth century, supported by massive
timbers, sound and strong, of even older date. He would see many of
these houses with windows full of flowers, and creepers twining round
the old eaves; and long drying-poles stretched out horizontally, with
gay-coloured clothes upon them, flapping in the wind--all contrasting
curiously with the dark buildings.

But he would also find some houses on the verge of ruin. If he explored
far enough in the dark, narrow streets, where the rivers flow under the
windows of empty dwellings; he might see them tottering, and threatening
downfall upon each other--leaning over and casting shadows, black and
mysterious upon the water--no line perpendicular, no line horizontal,
the very beau-ideal of picturesque decay--buildings of which Longfellow
might have sung as truly as of Nuremberg,--

"Memories haunt thy pointed gables,
Like the rooks which round them throng."

In short, he would find Pont Audemer, and the neighbouring town of
Lisieux, treasure houses of old mysterious 'bits' of colour and form,
suggestive of simple domestic usage in one building, and princely
grandeur in another--strength and simplicity, grace and beauty of
design--all speaking to him of a past age with the eloquence of history.

Let us look well at these old buildings, many of them reared and dwelt
in by men of humble birth and moderate means--(men who lived happily and
died easily without amassing a fortune)--let us, if we can, without too
much envy, think for a moment of the circumstances under which these
houses were built. To us, to many of us, who pay dearly for the
privilege of living between four square walls (so slight and thin
sometimes, that our neighbours are separated from us by sight, but
scarcely by sound)--walls that we hire for shelter, from necessity, and
leave generally without reluctance; that we are prone to cover with
paper, in the likeness of oak and marble, to hide their meanness--these
curious, odd-shaped interiors, with massive walls, and solid oak
timbers, are especially attractive. How few modern rooms, for instance,
have such niches in them, such seats in windows and snug corners, that
of all things make a house comfortable. Some of these rooms are twenty
feet high, and are lighted from windows in surprising places, and of the
oddest shapes. What more charming than this variety, to the eye jaded
with monotony; what more suggestive, than the apparently accidental
application of Gothic architecture to the wants and requirements of the
age.[7]

We will not venture to say that these old buildings are altogether
admirable from an architect's point of view, but to us they are
delightful, because they were designed and inhabited by people who had
time to be quaint, and could not help being picturesque. And if these
old wooden houses seem to us wanting (as many are wanting) in the
appliances and fittings which modern habits have rendered necessary, it
was assuredly no fault of the 15th-century architect. They display both
in design and construction, most conspicuously, the elements of common
sense in meeting the requirements of their own day, which is, as has
been well remarked, "the one thing wanting to give life to modern
architecture;" and they have a character and individuality about them
which renders almost every building unique. Like furniture of rare
design they bear the direct impress of their maker. They were built in
an age of comparative leisure, when men gave their hearts to the
meanest, as well as to the mightiest, work of their hands; in an age
when love, hope, and a worthy emulation moved them, as it does not seem
to move men now; in an age, in short, when an approving notice in the
columns of the 'Builder' newspaper, was not a high aspiration.

But in nothing is the attraction greater to us, who are accustomed to
the monotonous perspective of modern streets, than the irregularity of
the _exteriors_, arising from the independent method of construction;
for, by varying the height and pattern of each facade, the builders
obtained to almost every house what architects term the 'return,' to
their cornices and mouldings, i.e., the corner-finish and completeness
to the most important projecting lines. And yet these houses are
evidently built with relation to each other; they generally harmonize,
and set off, and uphold each other, just as forest trees form themselves
naturally into groups for support and protection.

All this we may see at a distance, looking down the varied perspective
of these streets of clustering dwellings; and the closer we examine
them, the more we find to interest, if not to admire. If we gain little
in architectural knowledge, we at least gain pleasure, we learn _the
value of variety in its simplest forms_, and notice how easy it would be
to relieve the monotony of our London streets; we learn, too, the
artistic value of high-pitched roofs, of contrast in colour (if it be
only of dark beams against white plaster) and of _meaning_ in every line
of construction.

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