Part 1 (2/2)
The Benedictine convent also belonged to the Harcourts until the revolt of Geoffrey. It is now the property of the Surs de la Misericorde, who have rebuilt the fine Abbey church according to its former model. Originally built in the eleventh century, it was partly burnt in the fourteenth, and reconstructed in the fifteenth. The columns and arches of the nave are of the first period; the form of the church is a Latin cross, having an apse ornamented with a double row of lancet windows, richly sculptured. The sculptures are all executed by an untaught workman of the place, who died before he had completed the pulpit. To collect the funds necessary for the undertaking, the foundress travelled throughout Europe. Her tomb is in the church. ”Julie Francoise Catherine Postel, nee a Barfleur, 1756. Sur Marie Madelaine, Fondatrice et premiere Superieure Generale de l'Inst.i.tut des Ecoles Chretiennes de la Misericorde, morte en odeur de Saintete 16 Juillet 1846, a l'Abbaye de St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte.” The badge of the sisterhood is a cross inscribed with their motto ”L'obeissance jusqu'a la mort.” Some of the party made an attempt at fis.h.i.+ng in the little river Douve, but without success, though rewarded for their walk by a pretty view of the apse of the Abbey church, with its delicately-sculptured lancet windows, from the opposite side of the river.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 5. L'OBeISSANCE JUSQU'a LA MORT.]
We hired a private carriage (_voiture a volonte_) to Periers. After pa.s.sing over a hilly road we crossed a marsh which extends from Carentan to the sea, and reached a town called La Haye-du-Puits-a singular name derived from the custom in the middle ages of surrounding the ”motte” or enclosure upon which the donjon was built, with a wooden palisade, or sometimes with a thick hedge formed of thorns and branches of trees interlaced: hence La Haye-du-Puits, La Haye-Pesnel, and others. Here is a Norman church restored: all the capitals of the columns are of the same pattern.
The Abbey church at Lessay, where next we stopped, is of the twelfth century, and considered, with Coutances and Periers, to be the finest examples of Romanesque in the Cotentin. The arches are round, and all the architecture of the church, which has been restored, is of the same period. The Abbey of Lessay had transmarine jurisdiction and the right of presentation to the Priory of Boxgrove and other endowments in the diocese of Chichester. The Abbey house, now inhabited, is a fine modernised habitation. At Lessay we saw the manner of was.h.i.+ng linen practised in many places throughout Normandy and Brittany. Being first roughly washed in the river, the clothes are placed in layers in a large cask, with a bunghole at the bottom, alternately with wood-ashes, and on the top is laid a piece of coa.r.s.e sacking. Boiling water is poured over the top, which, as it pa.s.ses through the linen, absorbs the soda of the ashes, escaping at the bottom and carrying away with it all impurities. This process is repeated several times till the clothes are perfectly white.
Throughout this part of the country the mistletoe hangs as the sign of a cabaret; and if cider is sold, some apples are fastened to the bush. On the road to Periers we crossed a ”lande” or common, where we met numerous carts carrying sea sand, here used to mix with the heavy soil as manure.
At Periers we slept at the little inn ”La Croix Blanche,” kept by Madame Casimir, the widow of a Polish officer, well known for her eccentricity and good cuisine. The entrance to the apartments in the inns is generally through the kitchen; in many the box bedstead (_lit clos_) stands in the corner near the fire, Breton fas.h.i.+on. On a barber's shop we saw painted up ”Ici l'on rajeunit.” The church has a tall spire, and is one of the finest religious edifices in this part of Normandy-painted windows, the capitals of the columns of varied foliage, and fine groined cl.u.s.tered arches.
We had a most perilous drive to Coutances, the coachman, ”en ribote,”
drove us at a fearful pace, and we were thankful when we arrived in safety. The Norman cathedral is beautiful-so simple, so pure, and elegant; its tall towers terminating in spires; and the chapels being separated by open mullioned arches, great lightness is given to the interior. The Bishop of Coutances was officiating at the consecration of some stones for a new pavement; each flag was rubbed over and anointed with oil.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 6. Coutances Cathedral.]
The church of St. Pierre has a handsome square tower, pierced gallery, and apse with a double row of columns. In the church of St. Nicholas we particularly noticed the fine bosses of the groined arches in the chancel.
The fonts hereabouts have the serpent with the apple, and the cross carved upon the cover. The church was filled with pots of flowers they were employed in removing, for the day before had been the Fete of St. Fiacre, the patron of gardeners. St. Fiacre, or Fiaker, was an Irish monk of the seventh century, who, according to tradition, obtained from the Bishop of Meaux a grant of as much ground out of the forest as he could dig a trench round in one day's labour, for the purpose of making a garden and cultivating vegetables for travellers. Long time after, the peasants would show the ditch ten times longer than was expected, and relate how, when the Irishman took his stick to trace a line upon the soil, the earth dug itself under the point of the stick, while the forest trees fell right and left to save him the trouble of cutting them down. Outside the town are the remains of an aqueduct, with ivy-covered arches, said to be the work of the middle ages. It is a good point of view for sketching the cathedral, and the public gardens also command a fine prospect.
The approach to Granville is by a sharp descent. The town is built at the foot of a rocky promontory, the streets rising in terraces cut in the rock, on the top of which are the citadel and the church on the culminating point. It has been styled a Gibraltar in miniature. A fort was built here by Lord Scales, who commanded the English forces in the Cotentin in the time of Henry VI., and it was taken by surprise by Estouteville, the hero of Saint Michel. The church is cruciform in plan, the arms of the cross being equal. The axis of the nave is inclined to the left, as we afterwards observed that of the Creizker at St. Pol de Leon.
It has been lately restored, and the painted windows are offerings of the different families of the town. The view from the top of the ”Roc” is very extensive, including the Chausey islands and Jersey. A steamer runs twice a week to St. Helier. A deep cutting in the rocks opens on the beach, where the bathing-machines are stationed-curious little canvas huts carried upon poles, like sedan chairs. The tide here rises 45 feet. It was to Granville the Vendean army, commanded by La Rochejacquelin, appointed generalissimo at twenty-two, marched after their fatal step of crossing the Loire, expecting to make a junction with the English; but Granville was vigorously defended, contrary winds r.e.t.a.r.ded the arrival of the English fleet, and the retreat from the coast, where it might have been supported by the English, was the ruin of the Royalist army. Of the 80,000 who crossed the Loire sixty days before, only 8000 remained to make their last heroic resistance at Savenay, which ended the great Vendean war. A few months after, the hero of this n.o.ble army, the chivalrous Henri de la Rochejacquelin, fell from the bullet of a soldier whose life he had spared(1):-
”Lorsqu'en des jours trop malheureux Palissait l'astre de la France; Quand les curs les plus valeureux Semblaient perdre toute esperance,
L'antique honneur, la sainte foi, Brillerent dans cette contree; Mourir pour son Dieu, pour son roi, Fut le serment de la Vendee.”
The costume of the Granville women is singular. They wear long black cloaks or mantles, edged with a frill of the same material, and on their heads a kind of bandeau or under-cap, turned up at the ears, surmounted by a white handkerchief, folded square and placed horizontally upon the head, like the plinth of a Grecian capital.
We drove to St. Pair, a small watering-place about two miles from Granville, nicely situated in a little sandy bay. In the middle of the church is the monumental tomb of St. Pair and another saint (St. Gault); their effigies, with mitre and crozier, side by side.
Next day we had a beautiful drive to Avranches. A winding road leads up to the town, which is situated on an elevated plateau, commanding a view of Brittany on one side and of Normandy on the other-a broad expanse of land and sea, the former extending over the valley of the See, with its network of small streams interlacing each other; Mont St. Michel appears in the distance. The finest view is from the Botanic gardens. The cathedral of Avranches fell at the end of the last century, but a model of it is preserved in the museum. One stone remains, carefully surrounded by ma.s.sive chains, with an inscription recording that it was the spot where Henry II. received absolution for the murder of Thomas a Becket:-”Sur cette pierre, ici a la porte de la cathedrale d'Avranches, apres le meurtre de Thomas Becket, Archeveque de Cantorbery, Henri II., roi d'Angleterre, duc de Normandie, recut a genoux, des legats du pape, l'absolution apostolique, le dimanche xxii Mai, 1172.” The cemetery is at the foot of the hill; the tombs are of granite, with the letters in relief: among them we read many well-known English names.
At Pontorson we could find no remains of the castle of Du Guesclin, which was nearly surprised by the English under a captain named Felton, during the absence of Du Guesclin, with the connivance of the ”chambrieres” of the Lady Typhaine, his wife. Already their scaling-ladders were against the wall, when Juliana, Du Guesclin's sister, agitated by a troublous dream, awoke suddenly, seized a sword, rushed to the window, and upset three English who were coming up the ladder, and they were killed by the fall. The enemy retired. Next morning Du Guesclin, on his return to Pontorson, met Felton and his party, attacked them, and took them prisoners. When Typhaine saw Felton, she tauntingly exclaimed, ”Comment, brave Felton, vous voila encore! C'est trop pour un homme de cur comme vous d'etre battu, dans une intervalle de douze heures, une fois par la sur, une autre par le frere.” Du Guesclin caused the faithless ”chambrieres” to be sewed up in sacks and flung into the river.
John IV. Duke of Brittany conferred upon Du Guesclin the government of Pontorson, of which territory he was personally lord, by right of his mother. It was here he often resided, and here he celebrated being made Constable of France by King Charles V., and fraternised with Olivier de Clisson, agreeing to afford each other mutual help-”contre tous ceux qui peuvent vivre et mourir.” The granite church was founded by Duke Robert, father of the Conqueror.
Pontorson is the most convenient place for visiting Mont St. Michel. Our drive thither was by the banks of the river Couesnon, along a sandy road, bordered on each side by hedges of tamarisks, which leads to the ”Greve,”
or sands, which have to be crossed to reach the Mount, a distance of rather more than a mile. We met numbers of bare-legged half-clad women and children, bringing in the produce of their fis.h.i.+ng, shrimps and c.o.c.kles tied up in nets, and peasants with carts carrying in sea sand for dressing the land. The appearance of Mont St. Michel is very imposing, a cone of granite encircled by the sea. Above rises the fortress, surmounted by the church, a height of 400 feet from the top to the water. Below, at the foot of the Mount, picturesquely situated on an insulated rock, is the little chapel of St. Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, the founder of St. Michel. The Mount has been the residence of many of our English princes. Matilda, queen of the Conqueror, visited St. Michel. It was here her son Henry I., then only Count of the Cotentin, was blockaded by his brothers William and Robert, and obliged to surrender. Here Henry II. held his court, and, when Henry V. overran Normandy, St. Michel was the only fortress that held out against him, under its gallant defender Louis d'Estouteville of Bricquebec. Two cannons, now at the entrance of the castle, are said to have been taken from the English at the siege. Normandy was always the scene of the quarrels between the English Norman princes, of the disputes between the sons of the Conqueror, between Stephen of Blois and Henry of Anjou, and again of those between Henry II. and his sons, and of Richard and his brother John, to the latter of whom the Normans were attached.
Seven French kings have made pilgrimages to St. Michel; and here Louis XI.
inst.i.tuted the order of knighthood, called in honour of the archangel St.
Michael, but afterwards styled the order of the Coquille, from the c.o.c.klesh.e.l.ls that formed the collar of the knights, and the golden c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.ls that bordered their mantles. The motto of the order was the old motto of the Mount, ”Immensi tremor Oceani” (the trembling of the immeasurable ocean), being an allusion to the popular belief that when the English approached St. Michel, the guardian archangel of the Mount raised a tempest to drive the enemy's vessels upon the rocks. This belief may be traced back to the time when the island was occupied by the Druid priestesses, who were supposed to have the power of raising storms and stilling them by their magic arrows of gold.
We ascended by the flight of steps to the ”Merveille,” as the convent building is called, and well it deserves its name, from its elegance, its boldness, and its position, with a wall of above one hundred feet high, and of immense length, rising from the rock and supported by fifteen b.u.t.tresses, and divided into three stories. In every point of view it is one of the most remarkable edifices of the thirteenth century. The salle des chevaliers, where the chapters of the knights were held, is a fine hall, with three rows of columns, and above it are the beautiful Gothic cloisters. The ”preau” or court is surrounded by a double row of pointed arches, interlacing each other, and filled in with flowered spandrils and cornices, carved with the greatest delicacy and endless variety. The church which crowns the building is supported by a circle of enormous columns in the crypt beneath, called the Souterrain des Gros Piliers: it has been entirely restored, and the carvings are the work of the prisoners who were confined here. From one of the doors we went out to the platform or terrace called Beauregard, from the beauty of its prospect, or sometimes Sault Gautier, from a prisoner of that name, who three times threw himself off the platform to commit suicide. The view from hence is most extensive, the whole circuit of the bay extending to the west as far as Cancale. In 1203 St. Michel became a royal demesne, and the buildings were entirely reconstructed by the Abbot Jourdan, a.s.sisted by Philip Augustus; and the works were continued by his successors to 1260.
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