Cathedral Cities of France Part 3

The church itself is unfortunately situated in a corner of the _Place_, and a large building which abuts on its north-west tower detracts considerably from its beauty and importance. The south transept door opens into the Rue du Paradis--a name which one is glad to see preserved in the neighbourhood of French cathedrals. It may refer to a garden or close which has been absorbed by surrounding buildings, or to a closed-in porch, the upper stories of which have been used either as libraries, or as lodgings for chantry-priests.

Chapter Six

BAYEUX

We read of Bayeux--before going there--as a place where many went but few stayed, because of the towns behind and before; memories of Caen and Lisieux, expectations of Coutances and Saint-Lo, which dimmed the modest light of little Bayeux. It is curious, however, that this should be the case, when we remember how important was the position it held in the history of mediaeval Normandy. It was the chief town of the country known as the Bessin, a district lying immediately to the west of Rolf's duchy at Rouen, and the conquest of which was the next stage on his westward road. One interesting point here is that the inhabitants of the Bessin, even as far back as the later days of the Roman Empire, were not Celts but Saxons--men of the same race as Rolf, who took possession of Bayeux in 924, and established there a Danish settlement, which, as Freeman says, was always a thorn in the side of the Celts, and provoked many attacks from its Breton neighbours. Saxon and Dane made common cause against the enemies both to the east and to the west; and thus at Bayeux there grew up a strong Teutonic colony, without the Frankish element which, as we have seen, worked such changes at Rouen. The old Norse religion obtained here long after eastern Normandy had become Christian; and the Bayeux colony bore much more affinity to the Danish settlements in England than to that at Rouen, the nucleus of Normandy, which was hardly Norman at all, whereas, as Freeman remarks, "the acquisition of Bayeux gave Normandy all that created and preserved the genuine Norman character." For this reason William Longsword chose that his son, Richard the Fearless, should be brought up at Bayeux rather than at Rouen--so that, living amongst his own people, he might in time come to be not only Duke of Normandy, but also Duke of the Normans.

The Bessin still preserves this ancient distinction, and both country and inhabitants bear a great resemblance to those of England. Bayeux itself is a quiet country town, built up one low hill and down another--a town of long streets and grey-shuttered houses, possessing three princ.i.p.al interests--the Cathedral, the Seminary Chapel and the Tapestry. It is also the birthplace of Alain Chartier, minstrel and court-poet to Charles VII., and author of that curious doc.u.ment, the "Curiale," whose best praise lies in the fact that it was one of the earliest books selected for publication by Caxton. It is a brilliant and vivid picture of the court life of the time; and the story says of Maitre Alain that he intended it as an answer to a letter from his brother Jean, enquiring whether he, too, could not find fame at court.

Certainly it looks as if the favoured brother wished to keep to himself the good things of life, for although he paints in brilliant colours, Alain does not spare the follies and vices of court life, and one cannot help feeling that his object was to put the more obscure Jean "off the scent."

Little is known of the circ.u.mstances either of Chartier's birth or his death, though of his actual life several records exist. He is known to have been one of the most brilliant men of letters of his time, probably rivalled only by Charles d'Orleans, and--since a court minstrel is always a picturesque figure--he has come down to our times surrounded by a certain halo of romance. His many writings, both in prose and verse, are very little known to modern readers, though he had many disciples among the men of his own time, and his "Breviaire des n.o.bles" was considered such a standard for courtly manners that it was apportioned out, so Jean de Masles tells us, into daily pa.s.sages for the youth of the court--that court of which Chartier knew every turn, every corner, every glittering folly and every dark intrigue--to learn by heart. A modern statue in his native town at the end of the Rue General de Das shows him in furred cap and flowing robe, a pen in one hand, and in the other a sheaf of papers from which he is apparently declaiming some gay rondel or pathetic ballad.

His house in the Rue des Bouchers is also shown, with an inscription to the effect that he was born there with his two brothers, Jean and Guillaume; but it has now become a very small and dingy shop, and one goes away with a feeling that a link with the past has been broken. But although Chartier's house would scarcely be singled out as an ancient landmark, one or two there are in the quiet grey line of the Bayeux streets that seem to belong to a better time, a time when watchmen walked the streets by night and armed men clattered down them by day: and among these stands out the really beautiful gabled specimen at the corner of the Rue St. Martin. Here cross-timbers, black and white, tall gables and lattice windows call for our admiration on our road to the Cathedral; and nearer the great church itself is the sixteenth-century Maison du Gouverneur, and another "Maison d'Adam." It is curious how often street and house names in France reverted in this way to our common origin. In countless places do we find Maisons d'Adam (Eve sometimes has a share in the patronage of the house), with their figures of Adam, Eve and the Serpent; sometimes, as at Rouen, a whole street bears the name of the Pere Adam. It would be interesting to know if this is a cropping up of the Revolutionary _egalite_--a wooden form of

"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"

If so, the idea is certainly before its time, since many of these houses and streets were built, and presumably named, when the Revolution was as yet in its cradle.

The Lanterne des Morts, a quaint structure with a quaint t.i.tle, raises a perforated cone on the south-west of the Cathedral. This mediaeval lamp-post had it name from the fact that it was lighted whenever a funeral procession pa.s.sed through the town; and it must certainly have added to the impressiveness of the scene, especially when, as was often the case in old days, the burial took place in the dead of night, and this red glowing beacon towered above the low roofs like a great funeral torch as the chanting of the monks broke the stillness, and the sombre figures with their burden moved into the church.

Returning to the three princ.i.p.al attractions of Bayeux noticed above, the Cathedral--the only church of importance--falls naturally into the first place. Entering by one of the five beautiful gabled doorways, one stands on a platform above the level of the nave floor. The standpoint being thus raised, the length of the church is apparently enhanced.

There is a church in Rome and another at Modena where this _coup d'il_ is effected by the street level being some twenty or thirty steps above the nave.

The bays of the nave, especially in their lower compartments, are very remarkable. Above the twelfth-century round-headed pier arches, and reaching to the very small triforium bal.u.s.trade, the whole wall face is decorated with beautiful diaper carving. This surface decoration is to be found in Westminster Abbey, but not in the same varied richness as on the walls and spandrils at Bayeux. On one of the bays the old corbels which carried the organ in the thirteenth century still remain. The clerestory windows are beautiful in proportion and constructed in double planes. The spandrils and tracery of the choir arches show examples of early plate tracery.

In the treasury one of the most interesting pieces of furniture is a large _armoire_ containing church vestments, and another example of early joinery is to be found in the fine door in the south aisle. Here huge planks, some eighteen feet in length, are fastened together by iron bands and hinges, without framework of any kind. The two western towers, together with the crypt, are said to be the only parts remaining of the old church of Odo, brother of the Conqueror.

We made two unsuccessful attempts to obtain entrance to the Seminary Chapel; but as it is said to be a very beautiful specimen of early Gothic, the short description given by Whewell may perhaps act as an incentive to other visitors, and spur them on to greater importunity than we used. He considers it to be "the most elegant and complete example of the Early English style. The details resemble those of the Temple Church in London, in the shafts, capitals, vaulting, &c. The arrangement of the east end is remarkable, uniting as it does in a considerable degree the effect of the polygonal apse and of the east windows, having diverging vaulting but with eastern lights."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STREET CORNER, BAYEUX]

At the present day it is upon the Tapestry that Bayeux bases its chief claim to notoriety, and the first feeling is one of surprise if not of disappointment on finding that it can hardly be reckoned as tapestry at all. This impression, however, soon disappears when we come to consider the interest and importance of the work, not merely as a local but also as an historic monument. Many and fierce have been the controversies as to its origin--all the more so from the fact that it was not brought to light until (speaking relatively) within recent times, so that little can be gained from history or tradition, or, indeed, from anything beyond the internal evidence. The form of the Tapestry is well known to all visitors of Bayeux (and without going so far afield, a very accurate copy may be seen at the South Kensington Museum)--a long, narrow piece of linen, embroidered in crewel work of five different colours, setting forth the conquest of England by Duke William. In 1724 M. Lancelot found a copy of some of the scenes among the papers of the Intendant of Normandy, and concluding after a close investigation that everything pointed to the work being contemporary with the events depicted, communicated his discovery to the Academie Francaise. Montfaucon carried on the investigation, and finally discovered the original of Lancelot's copy in a length of tapestry which was hung round the Cathedral at Bayeux on great festivals. The early authorities seem to have entertained no doubt of its being contemporary, but later accounts set forth theories so widely different from one another, and in some cases so flatly contradictory, that it is impossible to enter into them within a very limited s.p.a.ce. Following the authority of Freeman, who treats the subject in a very complete manner in his "History of the Norman Conquest" (vol. iii. Appendix, note A), we may a.s.sume that the "Toilette du Duc Guillaume," as it is called in an ecclesiastical inventory at Bayeux of the fifteenth century, is contemporary with the history of the Conqueror, but is more likely to have been connected with Odo than with Queen Matilda. This theory is supported by the prominence given in the various scenes to "Turold, Vital, and Wadard, " who are mentioned in Domesday Book as va.s.sals of the bishop, but are in themselves quite unimportant, which would suggest that the original interest of the Tapestry was intended to be a purely local one, for the Bishop of Bayeux alone. Freeman thinks it possible that the work may have been done in England. When Napoleon became First Consul he sent for the tapestry from Bayeux, and displayed it in the Louvre as an incentive to Frenchmen to conquer England as Duke William had conquered it some seven centuries before. After this it returned to Bayeux, and was formerly shown to the curious visitor rolled on a windla.s.s; but later days have treated it more reverently, and it is now preserved under gla.s.s in a condition of colour and texture which, considering its age and its adventures, it little short of marvellous.

Side by side with that of the Conqueror, the other memory which Bayeux calls up is undoubtedly that of the greatest bishop the little city ever knew, who governed it during half a century of Normandy's most stirring history. Odo's life-story stands out among those of the men of his time, indeed, much as does the life-story of his half-brother, Duke William.

In an age when bishops wielded sword as well as mace, he outstripped his contemporaries not only in ecclesiastical power, but in the highest of temporal ambitions. Like Wolsey, he aimed at being Pope above all his other goals. In the meantime Odo despised no stepping-stones to power.

He became Bishop of Bayeux in 1048; fought with William at Senlac, "in full armour by the side of his brother and sovereign, as eager and ready as William himself to plunge in wherever in the fight danger should press most nearly," and in the following year, when fear of foreign invasions called the new king back to Normandy, he was left in joint command of England with Fitz-Osbern, and given the t.i.tle of Earl of Kent. Thus we see that Odo had two distinct provinces--a secular one in England, a spiritual one in Normandy--and his rule seems to have differed according to the province in which he found himself. As Earl of Kent, the native chroniclers declare he was harsh, oppressive and tyrannical; his followers were lawless, and were dreaded through his territory. The chroniclers of Bayeux, however, show him up as a munificent prelate, generous in giving, a patron of "learning and good conversation, " and, above all, a benefactor to his see in that he rebuilt the church where his flock worshipped, and where the crypt and part of the western towers still bear witness of his work. William of Poitiers, the chronicler of all that William did, extends his panegyrics to Odo, and declares that he was appreciated and beloved both in Normandy and England. But this probably results, Freeman points out, from the immense admiration of William the chronicler for William the duke, which would probably--so partial were historians in those days--lead him to believe that not only was the Conqueror impeccable, but his lieutenants also.

Caen follows as a natural corollary to Bayeux, and once one has embarked upon a journey in the Bessin and Calvados districts, it seems almost invidious to stay in one town without paying a visit to the others, both being so intimately bound up with the story of the Conqueror.

The churches of Caen have never had any pretence to episcopal dignity, and it is curious that this city, richer in great churches than any town in Normandy, should never have been raised to a bishopric, more especially considering the number of cathedral towns which beside such a city as this rank as hardly more than large villages, and yet which, because they possess one church of importance, must take precedence of Caen and other bishopless cities. Apart from its ecclesiastical dignity, however, Caen should be visited because it is a town both ancient and beautiful, and in memory of the great duke, who, English sovereign though he was, yet seems to come before us much more vividly in Normandy than in England. It was the Conqueror who made Caen--perhaps not as it is to-day, but at any rate as it was in the Middle Ages. Caen, or Cadomum as the Normans found it, was a tiny parish lying on the outskirts of the Bessin district, burnt probably by the first Norman invaders, and likewise included in Rolf's conquests, but of too little importance either to be harmed by the one or benefited by the other.

Then arose the discussion about William's marriage with Matilda, the dispensation granted by the Pope for their breach of canonical law and the conditions under which William might keep his wife--that the duke and the d.u.c.h.ess should each build an abbey church and foundation within the town of Caen, that of William to serve for men, that of Matilda for women; and forthwith the little town became a centre of attraction, alive with workmen, visited no doubt from time to time by the duke and d.u.c.h.ess themselves in order that they might see how the work was going forward. The Abbaye aux Dames was the first to be consecrated. Matilda wished to hurry on the work, probably, as one writer says, from feminine impatience to complete her task. The church finished under her auspices, however, was too quickly erected to be more than a fragment, "simply so much as was necessary for the devotions of the sisterhood, " and its real completion belongs to a day later than the time of Matilda, though her original plan was in all probability carried out to the end. William, however, took his time over the building of his church, and watched it to the finish. It was consecrated, with the exception of the two western towers, by Lanfranc in 1077, and stands to-day, in its strength, simplicity and majesty, a fitting and lasting memorial of the man who ruled England and Normandy and kept them with hand of iron.

"The church of William, vast in scale, bold and simple in its design, disdaining ornament, but never sinking into rudeness, is indeed a church worthy of its founder. The minster of Matilda, far richer even in its earliest parts, smaller in size, more delicate in workmanship, has nothing of the simplicity and grandeur and sense of proportion which marks the work of her husband. The one is the expression in stone of the imperial will of the conquering duke; the other breathes the true spirit of his loving and faithful d.u.c.h.ess."

The foundation of the two great abbeys soon led to a growing population outside their walls. Houses were built around the Trinite on the hilltop and around Saint Etienne in the plain; various trades sprang up, we may suppose, within the town; and a castle--always a patent of n.o.bility to any town--was built on the hill, where William might lodge during his visits to Caen. These visits became more and more frequent until Caen was elevated almost to the rank of a royal residence; and even when Duke William became King of England, he found nothing in his new kingdom so pleasant as the little city under the hill. He built walls all round the town; he conceded to the inhabitants commercial privileges such as were enjoyed by Rouen and other large cities, together with the right of holding fairs, though the fairs of Caen never attained such celebrity as did those at Troyes; and finally, it was through the streets of Caen that his funeral train pa.s.sed, bearing the Conqueror to his long rest in the church which he had built in the city which he had loved.

"The death of a king in those days came near to a break-up of all civil society. Till a new king was chosen and crowned, there was no longer a power in the land to protect or to chastise. All bonds were loosed; all public authority was in abeyance; each man had to look to his own as best he might." Thus is described the state of feudal England and feudal Normandy after the death of the Conqueror at Rouen. A state of the utmost confusion prevailed; and apparently quite as an afterthought, ma.s.ses were offered for the soul of him who so lately had kept all in so strict an order. This confusion was not the outcome of any personal disrespect to the dead king; it was simply a reaction consequent on the removal of the one great headstone, the one great reliance of the realms on both sides of the Channel. In the meantime the body of William was borne to Caen to await burial. A Norman knight of the name of Herlwin took upon himself the task of ordering funeral rites proper to the degree of such a man, since neither kinsfolk nor servants seemed willing to stir a finger. Once at Caen, however, the Conqueror's faithful followers received their dead master with all the honour and respect which they had shown to him while living. The procession started in full pomp towards Saint Stephen's and was met by the Abbot Gilbert, his clergy, and a number of laymen. The monks fell into file, the solemn chant arose; but suddenly the orderly progress was arrested by an event as startling as any in the lifetime of the great man they were burying.

As the crowds filled the streets, a fire broke out in one of the houses; and as in the Middle Ages fires were easier to kindle and harder to quench than in later days, the flames spread along from house to house, till it seemed as though a sheet of fire were pursuing the Conqueror to his grave. Soon only the monks remained of the great company that had set out from the monastery, and they went on apparently as though nothing had happened, whilst the clergy, the lay helpers and the rest of the crowd dispersed to save their belongings from destruction, the dead man forgotten in the very real and living present need. "$1 $2 "

At Saint Stephen's were waiting a goodly company of bishops, Lanfranc of Canterbury, Odo of Bayeux, William's brother; Gilbert of Evreux, the preacher; and Gilbert of Lisieux, learned in medicine; with Geoffroy de Montbray, bishop of Coutances; and the saintly pupil of Lanfranc, Anselm of Bec. The scene which followed is an interesting one. The funeral ma.s.s was sung, the body being borne along the nave and chancel up to the altar; then Gilbert of Lisieux spoke the funeral oration, setting forth, as was the custom, the tale of William's battles and conquests, of his glory in war and his firm rule in peace, of his defence of the Church and his zeal against her enemies. "Pray, O people, that his sins may be forgiven before G.o.d, and if he had sinned against you in anything, forgive him that also yourselves." At the close of the oration all heads turned towards Ascelin, the son of Arthur, as he stood forth, and forbade the body to be buried in land which the Conqueror had wrested from his father. "I ... claim the land; I challenge it as mine before all men, and in the name of G.o.d I forbid that the body of the robber be covered with my mould, or that he be buried within the bounds of mine inheritance." Certainly here seemed some just impediment. An inquiry, necessarily brief because of the time and place, was held, and Ascelin's witness proved true; and then and there a sum was paid down to the claimant. Thus the great abbey which he had built was not lawfully his own until the day of his burial.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BAYEUX FROM THE MEADOWS]

Another memory of the Conqueror in Caen remains in the Truce of G.o.d which he imposed upon the Seigneurs of Normandy. Comparing this "Trenga Dei" with the Crusades, Freeman says: "The call to the Crusade fell in with every temper of the times; the proclamation of the Truce of G.o.d fell in with only one, and that its least powerful side. Good and bad men alike were led by widely different motives to rush to the Holy War.

The men who endeavoured to obey the Truce of G.o.d must often have found themselves the helpless victims of those who despised it." The Truce was preached first in Aquitaine in 1054, and Normandy was almost the last country to receive it. When it reached the north of France it was in a somewhat different form to that in which it had started. The early preachers began by denouncing all private warfare; but even in an age quickly fired by enthusiasm for a new movement, and more especially for a religious movement, obedience to this decree was found to be impossible. Men had hated one another too long to leap suddenly into a state of perpetual love; and the decree was modified, imposing abstention from private quarrels from Wednesday evening to Monday morning in each week. Even this seemed at first too much for the Norman spirit--"the luxury of destruction was dear to the Norman mind"--but the preaching of Bishops Richard and Hagano at length took effect, and at Caen, in 1042, was convoked the famous Council which was formally to receive the Truce, and command its observance all through the land.

Since then more than eight centuries have gone by; and yet to-day no place seems to breathe forth the spirit of the great duke as does Caen.

In the castle on the cliffs at Falaise he was born, at Rouen was his seat and capital, at Bayeux his victories are preserved in a lasting memorial; but at Caen he lived and lies buried, at Caen he built houses and churches and city walls, and at Caen we may still think of him, not as the usurper of Harold's throne, not as the oppressor of Hereward the Saxon and the stern, uncompromising lord of the English, but as the hero of the Normans, a figure more commanding even than the pioneer Rolf, and one whose best praise lies in those memories of "le Conquerant" that still haunt the Normandy of to-day.

After William's death the history of Caen is practically the history of every town in Northern France. He had provided it with a commerce of its own, so that it might be strengthened from within, and he had fortified it against a.s.sault from without; it fell into English hands, like its neighbour cities, both under Edward III. and Henry V.; it was ravaged by the terrible "Black Death" in the fourteenth century, and hara.s.sed by the League wars and stirred up by the revolt of the "Nu-pieds" under Louis XIII.

Finally, we find the Girondist party flying from the "Convention" at Paris and setting up an insurrection in the provinces, making Caen their headquarters; and one more page from the awful book of the Revolution shows us Charlotte Corday setting out from Caen, grim, ungirlish, filled only with her dreadful purpose, down the long, white road to Paris--which to her meant Marat.

Chapter Seven

SAINT-Lo AND COUTANCES

In very early days there was in Northern Gaul a little city on a hill-top, with a river running below, and this city was called Briovira, after the name of the river Vire. But in Christian times a certain bishop of Coutances, a native of Briovira, extended his pastoral protection to his birthplace, and called it by his own name, Laudus, or Lo, by which it is known to this day, although the bishopstool has no longer a place there. Saint-Lo does not strike one, either at first sight or afterwards, as being a cathedral city. The first view, from the railway, is a very rural one, and from an artist's point of view the place is more or less ideal, possessing as it does two important qualifications of a "paintable" town--it has a river, and it stands on a hill. Only the outskirts of Saint-Lo lie about the waterside; the real town is higher up on the steep frowning cliff, and the Rue Torteron straggles across the bridge and up the hill, and finally, by means of a steep little alley, leads out into the Place Ferrier, where stands the Cathedral. Here, too, the Sat.u.r.day market is held, and then the hill-top, usually quiet and deserted, blossoms into life, and the Rue Torteron is all a-clatter with farmers' carts and the scurry of _sabots_. The western half of the market-place is known as the "Place des Beaux-Regards," and from it, as its name testifies, stretches a wide view of the river, fields, and wooded hills beyond; here, also, is the fountain, crowned by Leduc's graceful bronze peasant-girl, with water-vessel poised easily over her shoulder.

Saint-Lo was a Huguenot stronghold during the wars of the League, and the cliff-face still retains a fragment of the old defences, the Tour Beauregard, an ivy-covered ruin clinging to the rock, which probably served as a watch-tower in times when the meadows of the Vire were not so peaceful as they are to-day.

The year 1575 saw the siege which the little town counts among the great events of its history, when Colombieres, the Huguenot, held out so bravely against the Catholic army. Colombieres had marched into Saint-Lo some months before in order to place a garrison there in case of a.s.sault, and the townspeople welcomed him almost as a protecting angel.

In the next year the enemy's forces marched up to the Vire under Matignon, and demanded the surrender of the garrison. Colombieres sent back a defiant message in answer, and the enemy's guns were soon thundering about the rocks above the river. Saint-Lo happens to be guarded by water on three sides--on two by tributary streams, on the third by the Vire itself, and this western side is further strengthened by the steep precipice, falling sheer down to what is now the Ba.s.se Ville. Matignon determined to take a bold line and attack the Tour Beauregard as well as the Tour de la Rose, which stood in a more approachable part. All day the artillery played upon the cliff-face, and all day Colombieres cheered on his men to the defence, when a breach at the Tour Beauregard had considerably detracted from their strongest position. At last the gallant leader, springing upon the ramparts, braved the enemy's fire, and fell dead before their eyes rather than suffer the indignity of surrender. When his inspiring presence was gone from their midst the Huguenots seemed to lose heart; their defence wavered, their fire became less fierce, and at the end the Catholics stormed the rock and poured into the market-place.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. Lo]

It is interesting to note that during the siege, as at an earlier one at Beauvais, the women of the town signalised themselves by the good service they rendered, though it was certainly service of a blood-thirsty order, since it consisted in pouring down the terrible streams of boiling pitch and lead upon the heads of the besiegers; a mode of defence, however, very often resorted to by those who did not use firearms.

Traces of Huguenot days can still be seen in the west front of the Cathedral, which has evidently been defaced by some fanatical hand. The irregularity of its porches gives to this facade a curious one-sided appearance, that on the north having a round arch and the central and southern arches being pointed. The two towers are of different periods.

In the seventeenth century, when the Cathedral was rebuilt, the perforated stone spires were added, the architect finding his inspiration in those at Bayeux and Caen. The best view of these is from the Ville Ba.s.se, where they come remarkably well into the picture, standing high above the grey roofs.

Here the Cathedral-church is, as usual, the centre of all that there is of antiquity in the town. There is one especially beautiful timber house, known as the Maison Dieu, some little distance from the west front; north and south of the church are various narrow streets--the Rue de la Porte Dollee runs over the stream of the same name, and under a curious old gateway tower; the Rue Henri Amiard leads to the precincts of the Cathedral, the south flank and its outward trend being well seen from here; but there is nothing very tangible in the way of antiquity, and one has an impression that when the bishop departed from Saint-Lo he must have taken with him the soul of the place.

Notre Dame de Saint-Lo has a very unusual and original plan, widening towards the east and adding another aisle to the north and south ambulatories. On the north side is its chief curiosity, an outdoor pulpit, built at the end of the fifteenth century and probably used by Huguenot preachers, to whom a sermon was a sermon, whether preached under a vaulted roof or the open sky. What strikes one most about the interior of the church is its want of light. The nave is absolutely unlighted, having neither triforium nor clerestory, and the aisles have only one tier of large windows, whose gla.s.s is old and very fine, though in most cases pieced together; the nave piers are ma.s.sive, with a cl.u.s.ter of three shafts; those of the choir are quite simple, and have one noticeable feature, the absence of capitals, the vault mouldings dying away into the pier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CATHEDRAL FRONT ST. Lo]

Like Saint-Lo, Coutances is a city built on a hill, and has therefore a peculiar charm all its own. The steep hill rises very impressively from the rolling country below, showing the Cathedral on the height, the towers of St. Pierre and the grey houses and apple orchards on the lower slope. As a town it has more to say for itself than Saint-Lo; small though it is, in respect of the part it has played in the history of its surroundings it can hold its own with many larger towns. Coutances on its granite rock is the watch-tower of the flat marshy Cotentin. It looks out to sea on the one side and over its subject towns on the other; it has seen the sun flash on the winged helmets of the Danes, on the spears of Englishmen of Agincourt, on the grim figures of the Huguenot leaders in the days of the League, as each in their day marched over the plains to Coutances for the sake of plunder, conquest and religion. Even in Roman times it was of importance; the Gauls called it Cosedia of the Unelli, but towards the end of the third century Constantius Chlorus fortified the town and called it after his name, which it bears at the present day--Constantius--Constance--Coutances.

The son and successor of this Constantius was Constantine the Great, from whose reign dates the spread of Christianity over Western Europe; and the Cotentin, as an old saying goes, now found itself divided between Saint Martin and Sainte Maria. Churches were built all over the land; bishops--every one a saint in these early days--followed the light of St. Augustine in England, and journeyed about the country making conversions and working miracles.