A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany Volume I Part 15

They were soft; and even pleasing notes. On looking round, I observed that the musician preceded a person, who carried aloft a Virgin, with the infant Jesus, in wax; and who, under such a sign, exhorted the mult.i.tude to approach and buy his book-wares. I trust I was too thorough-bred a _Roxburgher_ to remain quiet on the bench: and accordingly starting up, and extending two sous, I became the fortunate purchaser of a little _chap_ article--of which my friend BERNARDO will for ever, I fear, envy me the possession! The vender of the tome sang through his nose, as the organ warbled the following

_Cantique Spirituelle_.

EN L'HONNEUR DU TReS-SAINT SACREMENT,

_Qui est expose dans la grande Eglise cathedrale de St. Pierre et St. Paul de Rome, pour implorer la misericorde de Dieu_.

Air: du Theodore Francais.

APPROCHEZ-VOUS, Chretiens fideles, Afin d'entendre reciter: Ecoutez tous avec un grand zele, Avec ferveur et piete, Le voeu que nous avons fait, D'aller au grand Saint Jacques; Grace a Dieu nous l'avons accompli, Pour l'amour de Jesus Christ.

Dieu crea le ciel et la terre, Les astres et le firmament; Il fit la brillante lumiere, Ainsi que tous les autres elemens, Il a tire tout du neant, Ce qui respire sur la terre: Rendons hommage a la grandeur De notre divin Createur.

[156]Tous les jours la malice augmente, Il y a tres-peu de religion; La jeunesse est trop petulante, Les enfans jurent le saint Nom. Et comment s'etonneroit-on Si tant de fleaux nous tourmentent? Et si l'on voit tant de malheurs, C'est Dieu qui punit les pecheurs.

Souvent on a.s.siste a l'Office, C'est comme une maniere d'acquit, Sans penser au saint Sacrifice; Ou s'est immole Jesus Christ. On parle avec ses amis, De ses affaires temporelles, Sans faire aucune attention Aux mysteres de la religion.

Reflechissez bien, peres et meres, Sur ces morales et verites: C'est la loi de Dieu notre Pere; C'est lui qui nous les a dictees: Il faut les suivre et les pratiquer, Tant que nous serons sur la terre. N'oublions point qu'apres la mort, Nos ames existeront encore.

The day was beginning to wear away fast, and I had not yet accomplished the favourite and indispensable object of visiting the PUBLIC LIBRARY. I made two unsuccessful attempts; but the third was fortunate. I had no letter of introduction, and every body was busied in receiving the visits of their country friends. I was much indebted to the polite attention of a stranger: who accompanied me to the house of the public librarian, his friend, who, not being at home, undertook the office of shewing me the books. The room in which they are contained--wholly detached--and indeed at a considerable distance from the cathedral--is about sixty English feet long, low, and rather narrow. It is absolutely crammed with books, in the most shameful state of confusion. I saw, for the first time in Normandy, and with absolute gladness of heart, a copy of the _Complutensian Polyglot Bible_; of which the four latter volumes, in vellum binding, were tall and good: the earlier ones, in calf, not so desirable. For the first time too, since treading Norman soil, I saw a tolerably good sprinkle of _Italian_ books.

But the collection stands in dreadful need of weeding. Indeed, this observation may apply to the greater number of public collections throughout Normandy. I thanked my attendant for his patient and truly friendly attention, and took my leave.

In my way homewards, I stopped at M. Joubert's, the princ.i.p.al bookseller, and "beat about the bush" for bibliographical game. But my pursuit was not crowned with success. M.J. told me, in reply to black-letter enquiries, that a Monsieur A----, a stout burly man, whom he called "un gros papa"--was in the habit of paying yearly visits from Jersey, for the acquisition of the same black-letter treasures; and that he swept away every thing in the shape of an ancient and _equivocal_ volume, in his annual rounds. I learnt pretty nearly the same thing from Manoury at Caen.

M. Joubert is a very sensible and respectable man; and is not only "_Seul Imprimeur de Monseigneur l'Eveque"_ (PIERRE DUPONT-POURSAT), but is in fact almost the only bookseller worth consulting in the place. I bought of him a copy of the _Livre d'Eglise ou Nouveau Paroissien a l'usage du Diocese de Coutances_, or the common prayer book of the diocese. It is a very thick duodecimo, of 700 double columned pages, printed in a clear, new, and extremely legible character, upon paper of sufficiently good texture. It was bound in sheepskin, and I gave only _thirty sous_ for it new. How it can be published at such a price, is beyond my conception. M. Joubert told me that the compositor or workman received 20 francs for setting up 36 pages, and that the paper was 12 francs per ream. In our own country, such prices would be at least doubled.

It is impossible not to be struck here with the great number of YOUNG ECCLESIASTICS. In short, the establishment now erecting for them, will contain, when completed, (according to report) not fewer than four hundred.

It is also impossible not to be struck with the extreme simplicity of their manners and deportment. They converse with apparent familiarity with the very humblest of their flock: and seem, from the highest to the lowest, to be cordially received. They are indifferent as to personal appearance. One young man carries a bundle of linen to his laundress, along the streets: another carries a round hat in his hand, having a c.o.c.ked one upon his head: a kitchen utensil is seen in the hand of a third, and a chair, or small table, in that of a fourth. As these Clergymen pa.s.s, they are repeatedly saluted. Till the princ.i.p.al building be finished, many of them are scattered about the town, living quite in the upper stories. In short, it is the _profession_, rather than the particular candidate, which seems to claim the respectful attention of the townsmen.

[152] See page 13 ante.

[153] Mr. Cotman has a view of this church, in his work on Normandy.

[154] I suspect that the "peaceful" waters of this stream were frequently died with the blood of Hugonots and Roman Catholics during the fierce contests between MONTGOMERY and MATIGNON, towards the latter half of the sixteenth century. At that period St. Lo was one of the strongest towns in the Bocage; and the very pa.s.s above described, was the avenue by which the soldiers of the captains, just mentioned, alternately advanced and retreated in their respective attacks upon St. Lo: which at length surrendered to the victorious army of the _latter_; the leader of the Catholics. SEGUIN: _Histoire Militaire des Bocains_; _p.

340-384_; 1816, _12 mo_.

[155] The reader will be doubtless gratified by the artist-like view of this cathedral, by Mr. Cotman, in his _Architectural Antiquities of Normandy_.

[156] It cannot fail to be noticed that the following sentences are in fact _rhyming verse_, though printed prose-wise.

LETTER XVII.

JOURNEY TO GRANVILLE. GRANVILLE. VILLE DIEU. ST. SEVER. TOWN AND CASTLE OF VIRE.

_Vire_.

Since my last, I have been as much gratified by the charms of nature and of art, as during any one period of my tour. Prepare, therefore, for miscellaneous intelligence; but such as, I will make bold to predict, cannot fail to afford you considerable gratification. Normandy is doubtless a glorious country. It is fruitful in its soil, picturesque in the disposition of its land and water, and rich in the architectural relics of "the olden time." It is also more than ordinarily interesting to an Englishman. Here, in the very town whence I transmit this despatch--within two hundred and fifty yards of the hotel of the _Cheval Blanc_, which just now encloses me within its granite walls--here, I say, lived and revelled the ill.u.s.trious family of the DE VERES.[157] Hence William the Conqueror took the famous AUBREY DE VERE to be a spectator of his prowess, and a sharer of his spoils, in his decisive subjugation of our own country. It is from this place that the De Veres derive their name. Their once-proud castle yet towers above the rushing rivulet below, which turns a hundred mills in its course: but the warder's horn has long ceased to be heard, and the ramparts are levelled with the solid rock with which they were once, as it were, identified.

I left Coutances with something approaching to reluctance; so completely _anglicised_ seemed to be the scenery and inhabitants. The evening was beautiful in the extreme: and upon gaining the height of one of the opposite hills, within about half a league of the town, on the high Granville route, I alighted--walked, stopped, and gazed, alternately, upon the lovely landscape around--the cathedral, in the mean time, becoming of one entire golden tint from the radiance of the setting sun. It was hardly possible to view a more perfect picture of its kind; and it served as a just counterpart to the more expansive scene which I had contemplated, but the preceding evening, from the heights of that same cathedral. The conducteur of the Diligence rousing me from my rapturous abstraction, I remounted, and descended into a valley; and ere the succeeding height was gained, a fainter light floated over the distant landscape ... and every object reminded me of the accuracy of those exquisite lines of Collins--descriptive of the approach of evening's

... gradual, dusky veil.

For the first time, I had to do with a drunken conducteur. Luckily the road was broad, and in the finest possible condition, and perfectly well known to the horses. Every turning was successfully made; and the fear of upsetting began to give way to the annoyance experienced from the roaring and shouting of the conducteur. It was almost dark when I reached GRANVILLE--about twelve miles from Coutances; when I learnt that the horses had run six miles before they started with us. On entering the town, the road was absolutely solid rock: and considering what a _house_ we carried behind us (for so the body of the _diligence_ seemed) and the uncertain footing of the horses, in consequence of the rocky surface of the road, I apprehended the most sinister result. Luckily it was moon-light; when, approaching one of the sorriest looking inns imaginable, whither our conducteur (in spite of the better instructions of the landlord of the Hotel d'Angleterre at Coutances) had persuaded us to go, the pa.s.sengers alighted with thankful hearts, and bespoke supper and beds.

Granville is fortified on the land side by a deep ravine, which renders an approach from thence almost impracticable. On every other side it is defended by the ocean, into which the town seems to have dropt perpendicularly from the clouds. At high water, Granville cannot be approached, even by transports, nearer than within two-thirds of a league; and of course at low water it is surrounded by an extent of sharply pointed rock and chalk: impenetrable--terrific--and presenting both certain failure and destruction to the a.s.sailants. It is a GIBRALTAR IN MINIATURE. The English sharply cannonaded it a few years since, but it was only a political diversion. No landing was attempted. In the time of the civil wars, and more particularly in those of the League, Granville, however, had its share of misery. It is now a quiet, dull, dreary, place; to be visited only for the sake of the view from thence, looking towards _St. Malo_, and _Mont St. Michel_; the latter of which I give up--as an hopeless object of attainment. Granville is in fact built upon rock;[158] and the houses and the only two churches are entirely constructed of granite. The princ.i.p.al church (I think it was the princ.i.p.al) is rather pretty within, as to its construction; but the decidedly gloomy effect given to it by the tint of the _granite_--the pillars being composed of that substance--renders it disagreeable to the eye. I saw several confessionals; and in one of them, the office of confession was being performed by a priest, who attended to two penitents at the same time; but whose physiognomy was so repulsively frightful, that I could not help concluding he was listening to a tale which he was by no means prepared to receive.

An hour's examination of the town thoroughly satisfied me. There was no public conveyance to _Vire_, whither I intended immediately departing, and so I hired a voiture to be drawn by one st.u.r.dy Norman horse. To a question about springs, the conducteur replied that I should find every thing "tres propre." Having paid the reckoning, I set my face towards VIRE. The day, for the season of the year, turned out to be gloomy and cold beyond measure: and the wind (to the east) was directly in my face. Nevertheless the road was one of the finest that I had seen in France, for breadth and general soundness of condition. It had all the characteristics, in breadth and straitness, of a Roman route; and as it was greatly undulating, I had frequently some gratifying glimpses of its bold direction. The surrounding country was of a quietly picturesque but fruitful aspect; and had my seat been comfortable, or after the fashion of those in my own country, my sensations had been more agreeable. But in truth, instead of _springs_, or any thing approximating to "tres propre," I had to encounter a _hard plank_, suspended at the extremities, by a piece of leather, to the sides; and as the road was but too well bottomed, and the conveyance was open in front to the bitter blast of the east, I can hardly describe (as I shall never forget) the misery of this conveyance.

Fortunately the first stage was _Ville Dieu_. Here I ordered a voiture and post horses: but the master of the Poste Royale, or rather of the inn, shook his head--"Pour les chevaux, vous en aurez des meilleurs: mais, pour la voiture il n'y en a pas. Tenez, Monsieur; venez voir." I followed, with miserable forebodings--and entering a shed, where stood an old tumble-down-looking phaeton--"la voila, c'est la seule que je possede en ce moment"--exclaimed the landlord. It had never stirred from its position since the fall of last years' leaf. It had been--within and without--the roosting place for fowls and other of the feathered tribe in the farm yard; and although literally covered with the _evidences_ of such long and undisturbed possession, yet, as there was no appearance of rain, and as I discovered the wished for "_ressorts_" (or _springs_) I compromised for the repulsiveness of the exterior, and declared my intention of taking it onward. Water, brooms, brushes, and cloths, were quickly put in requisition; and two stately and well fed horses, which threatened to fly away with this slender machine, being fastened on, I absolutely darted forward at a round rattling gallop for _St. Sever_. Blessings ever wait upon the memory of that artisan who invented ... _springs_!

The postilion had the perfect command of his horses, and he galloped, or trotted, or ambled, as his fancy--or rather our wishes--directed. The approach to our halting place was rather imposing. What seemed to be a monastery, or church, at St. Sever, had quite the appearance of Moorish architecture; and indeed as I had occasional glimpses of it through the trees, the effect was exceedingly picturesque. This posting town is in truth very delightfully situated. While the horses were being changed, I made our way for the monastery; which I found to be in a state rather of dilapidation than of ruin. It had, indeed, a wretched aspect. I entered the chapel, and saw lying, transversely upon a desk, to the left--a very clean, large paper, and uncut copy of the folio _Rouen Missal_ of 1759. Every thing about this deserted and decaying spot had a melancholy appearance: but the surrounding country was rich, wooded, and picturesque. In former days of prosperity--such as St. Sever had seen before the Revolution--there had been gaiety, abundance, and happiness. It was now a perfect contrast to such a state.

On returning to the "_Poste Royale_" I found two fresh l.u.s.ty horses to our voiture--but the postilion had sent a boy into the field to catch a _third_. Wherefore was this? The tarif exacted it. A third horse "reciproquement pour l'annee"--parce qu'il faut traverser une grande montagne avant d'arriver a Vire"--was the explanatory reply. It seemed perfectly ridiculous, as the vehicle was of such slender dimensions and weight. However, I was forced to yield. To scold the postboy was equally absurd and unavailing: "parce que la tarif l'exigea." But the "montagne"

was doubtless a reason for this additional horse: and I began to imagine that something magnificently picturesque might be in store. The three horses were put a-breast, and off we started with a phaeton-like velocity!

Certainly nothing could have a more ridiculous appearance than my pigmy voiture thus conveyed by three animals--strong enough to have drawn the diligence. I was not long in reaching this "huge mountain," which provoked my unqualified laughter--from its insignificant size--and upon the top of which stands the town of VIRE. It had been a _fair_-day; and groups of men and women, returning from the town, in their blue and crimson dresses, cheered somewhat the general gloom of the day, and lighted up the features of the landscape. The nearer I approached, the more numerous and incessant were these groups.

Vire is a sort of _Rouen_ in miniature--if bustle and population be only considered. In architectural comparison, it is miserably feeble and inferior. The houses are generally built of granite, and look extremely sombre in consequence. The old castle is yet interesting and commanding.

But of this presently. I drove to the "_Cheval Blanc_," and bespoke, as usual, a late dinner and beds. The first visit was to the _castle,_ but it is right that you should know, before hand, that the town of Vire, which contains a population of about ten thousand souls, stands upon a commanding eminence, in the midst of a very beautiful and picturesque country called the BOCAGE. This country was, in former times, as fruitful in civil wars, horrors, and devastations, as the more celebrated Bocage of the more western part of France during the late Revolution. In short, the Bocage of Normandy was the scene of bloodshed during the Calvinistic or Hugonot persecution. It was in the vicinity of this town, in the parts through which I have travelled--from Caen hitherwards--that the hills and the dales rang with the feats of arms displayed in the alternate discomfiture and success of COLIGNY, CONDe, MONTMOGERY, and MATIGNON.[159]

But for the Castle. It is situated at the extremity of an open s.p.a.ce, terminated by a portion of the boulevards; having, in the foreground, the public library to the left, and a sort of munic.i.p.al hall to the right: neither of them objects of much architectural consequence. Still nearer in the foreground, is a fountain; whither men, women, and children--but chiefly the second cla.s.s, in the character of _blanchisseuses_--regularly resort for water; as its bason is usually overflowing. It was in a lucky moment that Mr. Lewis paid a visit to this spot; which his ready pencil transmitted to his sketch-book in a manner too beautiful and faithful not to be followed up by a finished design. I send you a portion of this prettily grouped picture; premising, that the woman to the right, in the foreground, begged leave purposely to sit--or rather stand--for her portrait. The artist, in a short time, was completely surrounded by spectators of his graphic skill.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The "_Cheval Blanc_"--the name of the hotel at which I reside--should be rather called the "_Cheval Noir_;" for a more dark, dingy, and even dirty residence, for a traveller of any _nasal_ or _ocular_ sensibility, can be rarely visited. My bed room is hung with tapestry; which, for aught I know to the contrary, may represent the daring exploits of MONTGOMERY and MATIGNON: but which is so begrimed with filth that there is no decyphering the subjects worked upon it.

On leaving the inn--and making your way to the top of the street--you turn to the left; but on looking down, again to the left, you observe, below you, the great high road leading to _Caen_, which has a n.o.ble appearance.

Indeed, the manner in which this part of Normandy is intersected with the "_routes royales_" cannot fail to strike a stranger; especially as these roads run over hill and dale, amidst meadows, and orchards, equally abundant in their respective harvests. The immediate vicinity of the town is as remarkable for its picturesque objects of scenery as for its high state of cultivation; and a stroll upon the heights, in whatever part visited, will not fail to repay you for the certain disappointment to be experienced within the streets of the town. Portions of the scenery, from these heights, are not unlike those in Derbyshire, about Matlock. There is plenty of rock, of shrubs, and of fern; while another _Derwent_, less turbid and muddy, meanders below. Thus much for a general, but hasty sketch of the town of Vire. My next shall give you some detail of the _interior_ of a few of the houses, of which I may be said to have hitherto only contemplated the _roofs_.

And yet I must not close my despatch without performing my promise about the CASTLE; of which indeed (as you will see by the subjoined miniature view) only a sort of ruinous sh.e.l.l remains. Its age may be a little towards the end of the thirteenth century. The stone is of a deep reddish tint: and although what remains is only a portion of the _keep_, yet I can never suppose it, even in its state of original integrity, to have been of very capacious dimensions. Its site is most commanding.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[157] The reader will find the fullest particulars relating to this once-distinguished family, in _Halstead's Genealogical Memoirs of n.o.ble Families, &c_.: a book it is true, of extreme scarcity. In lieu of it let him consult _Collin's n.o.ble Families_.

[158] [Mons. Licquet tells us, that in 1439, a Seigneur of Gratot, ceded the rock of Granville to an English n.o.bleman, on the day of St. John the Baptist, on receiving the homage of a hat of red roses. The n.o.bleman intended to build a town there; but Henry VI. dispossessed him of it, and built fortifications in 1440. Charles VII. in turn, dispossessed Henry; but the additional fortifications which he built were demolished by order of Louis XIV. &c.]

[159] An epitomised account of these civil commotions will be found in the _Histoire Militaire des Bocains, par_ M. RICHARD SEGUIN; _a Vire_, 1816; 12mo. of which work, and of its author, some notice will be taken in the following pages.

LETTER XVIII.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. MONSIEUR ADAM. MONSIEUR DE LARENAUDIERE. OLIVIER Ba.s.sELIN. M.