Normandy Picturesque Part 1

Normandy Picturesque.

by Henry Blackburn.

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._

NORMANDY PICTURESQUE.

CHAPTER I.

_ON THE WING._

It is, perhaps, rather a subject for reproach to English people that the swallows and b.u.t.terflies 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 pa.s.sion, 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 sh.o.r.es, 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 compa.s.s 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 t.i.tle-page, he will see at a glance the position of the princ.i.p.al 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 sh.o.r.es 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 pa.s.s 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; pa.s.sing 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 cla.s.ses of most communities.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 _arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_, 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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 alb.u.ms. She is n.o.ble 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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