such restraint as was needful,
specially after he had once tried to get away altogether. He did not
even cease to be Duke of the Normans. His brother administered his duchy
for him; but he never took the ducal title while Robert lived. Robert,
in short, was in much the same case as Henry III. was at the hands of
Earl Simon. To be carefully looked after at Bristol or Cardiff must have
been dull work for one who had scaled the walls of Jerusalem; but in his
brother's keeping Robert assuredly never had to lie in bed for want of
clothes. As for his comrade Eadgar, he was let go free altogether. The
crowned King had no need to fear the momentary King-elect of forty years
before. We only wish to know whether he did himself live to so
preternatural an age as to be a pensioner of Henry II., or whether he
who bears his name in the accounts of that reign is a son of whom
history has no tale to tell.

We go back from Tinchebray to Flers. Next day the main line takes us to
Argentan. The name of _Tenarcebrai_ is written in our own Chronicles; so
is that of _Argentses_; only is that really Argentan or only Argences?

ARGENTAN

1892

A good many of the places which we go through on such a journey as we
are now taking in Western Normandy, full as they are of historic and
local interest on particular grounds, might easily fail to attract, not
only the ordinary tourist, but even the general antiquarian traveller.
No one, for instance, need go to La Lande-Patry, unless he is anxious to
get a better understanding of a single sentence of the _Roman de Rou_.
Even at Tinchebray the strictly historic interest is all. Unless we
except that single arcade on the tower of St. Remigius, there is really
nothing memorable to show in the shape of either church or castle. With
Argentan the case is different. Any one who has a turn for mediaeval
antiquities in any shape would surely reckon that town as one of high
interest. With no such single memory as the great fight of Tinchebray,
it plays a certain part in history through many ages; the local history
of the town itself is remarkable, and its existing monuments are of
various kinds and instructive in several ways. And the means of getting
there are as simple as any means well can be; for Argentan is a
principal station on the line from Paris to Granville. It is also a
station on the great cross line from Caen to Le Mans. This position
makes it a good centre for seeing several places in v