G. E. Mitton

“ There is no doubt that spring is the time to see Falaise—spring, when the trees are at their freshest and richest, undimmed by dust or heat. By standing on the highest part of one line of rocks, we can see behind the castle in miniature the church of Guibray perched on a hill, its conical spire showing up against a distant line of horizon, so straight, so blue, so misty, it might well be the sea. ”

“ If one could only reverse the wheel of time and see the church as it looked at its great dedication festival, when, glittering in the smartness of work fresh from the chisel, it was dedicated in the presence of Henry the First of England! Would the workmen differ greatly in type, we wonder, from the group who now sit lazily sunning themselves on the steps? The present men, who are in blue blouses, are spare, not large of limb, with faces the colour of their own house-tiles, with sharp thin features and keen eyes? ”

“ From nearly every house comes the quiet hum of a hand-machine, wherewith men and women knit socks and other garments; this sound mingles with the splash and thud of the women busily washing clothes in the little narrow ditch, kneeling in their wooden tubs, arms in ice-cold water, and backs bent in the occupation which seems to take up far the largest proportion of a French peasant-woman’s day. ”

“ After Rouen, admittedly the capital, and Caen, so much larger than herself, she assuredly, for importance, antiquity, and all those things that go to make the fame of a city, comes third.
The first sight of the cathedral strikes one with astonishment; it is so composite, so decorative, that it takes one’s breath away. There is a feeling of hopelessness—one will never be able to understand it. ”

“ Such is Rouen, a city with as many facets as a jewel, each one of which contributes something to the perfect whole. We can see her as a city of magnificent churches, a city of famous Renaissance buildings, a city of narrow, crooked, winding streets, cobble-paved, and lined by mediæval timbered houses; we can see her in the light of an historic past, or as a wideawake city of the present day, with trams running along broad thoroughfares, with spacious quays and busy trade; she is a medley of the past and the present, and the one or the other is seen as it is sought. ”

“ Perhaps the western sun has fallen sufficiently to cast the long shadows of the odd medley of houses facing the cathedral over the rough cobbled street, and thereby to render the contrast of all that gallant fretwork, picked out, illuminated, and gilded by his splendour, all the grander. Within, the church is magnificent—and heartrending. Surely never in any other Catholic church, where loving hands are usually ready to perform devout offices, was more dirt seen.
There is rich stained glass of the fifteenth century in the side aisles. ”

“ The chief jewel of Rouen is of course the Cathedral, which in its bewildering variety and transition of styles, has a character of its own sufficient to stamp it permanently on the memory. I confess that to me personally, variety has an infinite charm; I remember far more readily and with greater appreciation a building where the slow growth throughout ages has ensured variety, than one where absolute harmony proclaims its completion to the pattern of a plan. ”

“ Strange, evil-looking fish with large heads are sold for a song, and each customer as she gets them—for it is nearly always a she—slips them into her string bag, and goes on her way rejoicing, with a cheap and wholesome dinner for the young ones at home. High on the cliff across the water, is the stiff new little church—there is another in the town below—and behind it, on the windswept cliff, the Le Pollet cemetery, filled with the cheap wooden crosses laden with those tawdry ornaments that mean so much and tell so little. ”

“ In the lowest storey there is the ancient cloister, superseded by the work of Villedieu, and also a beautiful crypt with short thick pillars, and a delicately groined roof.
One carries away loving memories of all this beauty, embodying so much strength and thought and care; one forgets, as one always does forget, the herding together, the sense of imprisonment, the disagreeable sights and sounds; and one thinks of this island, standing alone, and rising from the bosom of the sea, as one thinks of some glorious picture well-known and loved. ”

“ The evening sun, which has now left in shadow all the base of the masonry, picks out the lines and curves and angles of the parapet and the buttresses above, those wonderful flying buttresses with bossy pinnacles; it shows up the stiff, eternally yearning gargoyles, and the red-tiled roof. High above, up against the brilliant clearness of a pale-blue sky, swallows skim and wheel around one of the most graceful and perfect spires ever man devised or wrought. ”

“ Not only in scenery is the Côtentin a delightful place for a holiday, but in more unusual attractions. Its heights and hollows are studded with architectural remains, proud and stern chateaux, now for the most part occupied as farmhouses; its annals are as full of skirmishes and romantic stories as our own border country. Within a ten-mile radius of Valognes to the west and south, we find the chateaux of St Martin le Hebert, Bricbecque, Nehou, Vicomte St Sauveur, Crosville, Urville, and Flottemanville. Further south are the ruins of the ancient castle of La Haye du Puits. ”